Confronting grief & other small tales

 I) I thought I could remain frozen in time, just like you

You were frozen at the age of 29 

My heart stopped with yours at the age of 24

For the last three years, so much has changed 

Is it change or growth?

If every transformation I go through erases a small part of me

What will happen if I allow myself to move forward?

Will I be erased completely?

II) I read somewhere that grief is just love persevering

What a lovely idea 

But your love became a shadow

An empty closet

Shoes that no longer belong to anybody

A ring to wear around my neck

Memories of a life that has been,

but it is no longer.

III) If after 7 years, our whole body has changed

Every cell that you touched will die in five years

And I will have a body that you never touched, 

Eyes you would not recognize

New stretch marks, new scars, new tattoos

I can't remember which parts of me you were alive to see

I can't remember if you saw that our dog hit his head so hard against my chin that now I have a chipped tooth

I can't remember if you ever saw my hair so short

My shoulders so straight, the look in my face so far from here

My flatlining lips that refuse to smile when they ask me to

And a heart that I kept hidden in the well of memories I refuse to recall

Like a balloon heart, I sent it up in the hopes of everyone seeing my healing

But they saw nothing but the holes, they did not see the prick in their own hands

How could you not see? How could you look at this heart and do nothing about it?

IV) On the night I almost killed myself, I decided to watch the videos you made on your phone

We would film each other doing simple things

I would play pranks, you would fall for all of them

You filmed me while cleaning the fridge, or making pancakes, or fixing my nails on the first minutes of a brand new year

And I saw this girl with this whole life ahead

So much beautiful time

So many freckles, so many silly faces, perfect smile, not one tooth chipped

I looked at her for a long time

I wanted to help her

Tell her that she might want to die

That she always had a death wish

That it would not be easy, but it would never be her fault

That she will stay. That we stayed.

We prevailed.