Loss and Grief, Poetry

Interruption (sitting with grief)

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People love tidy stages,
but life tears the pages.
Grief moves how it moves.
I got frickin’ tired of managing it.

Interruption

I don’t have to tell you a story.
Grief won’t hold a clean line.
 
It interrupts.
 
The plot falls out of my hands
and the day runs on muscle memory. 
 
Crying comes less like a scene, 
more like my throat locks mid-sentence
and I’m staring at nothing,
as if the room moved an inch 
and I flinch.
 
Joy,
that thing I used to hold like breath, 
slips through my fingers
like I’m trying to catch smoke
with hands that won’t stop shaking.
 
I keep expecting it to settle into one shape.
It keeps changing.
 
Some days it’s dense in the chest,
some days it hides inside a laugh – 
too loud, too sharp, wrong in my own mouth.
Some days it stretches the quiet
until the room feels bigger than it is.
So I stop treating it like a problem to solve.
 
I say, “Alright.
Here you are.
I hate you here.
Fine.
Sit.
Take up your space.
I’ll take up mine.
We’ll breathe in the same room for a while.”
 
Because fighting it costs more
than letting it take its place,
heavy and real,
pulling air through me,
keeping time in my ribs.
 
Some losses are that big. 
They’re endless.
They change shape as the days stack up.
They show up in different corners,
and start living in the routine.

(2022, © Julia Delaney)

Interruption

Be Alive 🌱
Love ❤️, Julia

Healing through Loss

Grief, Anger, and the Love Beneath It
Before the Match Strikes (grief, anger & the love beneath it)
disenfranchised grief
Why Your Grief Doesn’t Count (the hierarchy of acceptable loss)
Why? Why me? stuck in grief
When “Why Did This Happen” Won’t Stop (stuck in grief)
You Don’t Have to Be the Strong One All the Time
You Don’t Have to Be the Strong One All the Time
moving on after loss
Beyond ‘Moving On’ (when grief makes us invisible)
I was a mess
When It’s All Too Much (emotional overload)
Pain Is Not Your Teacher
Pain Is Not Your Teacher (but you’ll learn anyway)
emotional pain processing difficult feelings
How to Sit With Emotional Pain When It Feels Impossible

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Julia Delaney

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