It is in love with you, your grief
Unconditionally.
It slinks in like a beaten dog
And makes its home at your feet
Asking for nothing.
Loyal agony
Too black to focus on
Too sudden, too seeping
With cracked voice and lolling tongue
It cannot explain itself.
But it longs for you
Clambering over your chest
Reaching into your mouth
Searching your throat for words of comfort
Finding none.
It is bound to us, our grief
Lassoed by memory
On a time-slackened rope, pulled taut
By the innocence of children
Or newness, unshared.
Curled under every stone
Pretending to be a small thing.
The shadow tethered to joy's light
Needle in the heart's cushion
Each loss, a tremor of the first.
It is in love with me, my grief
Unconditionally.
And I must learn to love it back
Or be outlived by it.
