dear grief – 18

dear grief,
I’m allowed to grieve however I like.

I, for example grieve the living all the time.
I grieved my father before he died,
I grieved with anger,
until he died,
then I grieved with silence,
then I grieved with entitlement,
then I grieved with poetry,
and now,
I grieve whichever way I like.

Even a kilo of fat I gain makes me grieve,
or a white hair I lose.

I grieved one day,
whilst he was still alive,
that he wouldn’t leave me grief in his will,
never in the world did I know he owned so much grief,
and whilst my family gets a proportion,
I’ve inherited most of it,
the mad of it,
the stricken of it.

I grieve unborn children that lay in my loins,
I grieve fertile wombs laid to rest,
worse, the ones that give up and grieve alone.

I grieve for a plant I didn’t tend to,
a palm I could not fill with a expiation of my sin.

Grief, has always been in my belly,
it took death to keep it on my tongue.

W.E.