What We Don’t Say About Grief

There’s no pain like having to talk in past tense

When having the sixth sense

Is the only way you’d be able to speak to someone you loved

Or the fact that their life now stretches as far as a picture frame

And goes as deep as the details ingrained in the brain

The memories that keep them memorialized

And I hate meeting new people because they will never know you

At least not the way I do

I will always have to search for the words to describe your light

But I can never get it right

Because I forget to mention the scar on your left knee

And I only know you as it relates to me

I could never illustrate all your intricacies

I didn’t know I was signing up for this

I didn’t know it was possible to miss someone

Like I do you

And the world just keeps spinning

Even though mine stopped long ago                                                 

Life lost its pigment like vitiligo

And there’s no cure for this either

I find myself looking up into the ether

Maybe just once I’d catch you looking back

I had to wash your clothes, so they lost the smell

Then I had to get a new phone, so I don’t have a single voicemail

It seems like everyday a piece of you manages to slip away

And once they go, I won’t ever know

Them again

So what if years go by

And I forget the reason I cry

And even a gravestone ain’t concrete enough

To prove that you were here