i wrote this for my grandma, who taught me "mary had a little lamb" and little songs on the piano when i was little. she taught me how to curve my fingers to press down on the keys, how to listen to the magic. without her, i wouldn't have fallen in love with the piano. i wrote this for my dog, who passed away too soon, who i miss every day. i wrote this for all the people i have lost to death. and i wrote this for myself, because grief never leaves me alone, always in my peripheral, waiting to curl around my shoulders.
the smallest, most everyday things remind me of them. it hurts to live.
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grief settles
like thick dust
into the crevices
of my bones.
it only takes
a breath
grazing over
my ivory skeleton
to wake it up,
and it rises from my body
in a heavy mass of dulled silver
like the ghost it is,
climbing into my lungs—
it hurts to breathe in
this gray sketch of you
when all it does
is echo
in all the places you have left barren,
hollow.
the world is watercolor
without you,
faded and
flooded with my tears,
and sometimes it is beautiful
but you would never know,
and i miss our technicolor days,
the world reimagined,
painted over by our laughter
as bright as acrylic paint
in the shade of sighing sunlight.
it's easy to remember
when bubbles bring you back.
because the smell of your soap
when i opened the bottle
rose up in a stream of glowing, angel bubbles
and the suds went straight to
my singed siren heart
that has never ceased
its singing
for a soul already lost,
and i clutch at my chest
because memories are wildfires
and i am the driest, forgotten forest.
grief never settles,
it just waits
to consume.
love,
mari