An Ode To Grief
Updated: Dec 1, 2020
Grief as a companion
i am not looking to let go of you
i am not looking to overcome you
i am not looking to defeat you
i am looking to be with you
i see you and touch you and taste you
our dance is beautiful
i will stay up late at night with you
i will wake to the birds song with you
alone in our very own cradle of
tears and sweat and sound
i let you envelop me and at times
i let you drown me
you are the gift that has broken my heart
and opened me to living
led me to the missing pieces of my soul
grief, i will not deny you a room in my house
or a place in my bed
i will take you out with me and
let them see you upon my weighted shoulders
and within my tired, red eyes
i will let the rains outside find melody
with your noise as you rush out from
inside me, around me
and through me
and then back into me again
when i lost what i loved
you became my companion
the key to my falling apart
and the source of my freedom
I wrote this poem on grief quite cathartically after seeing the image below. My moments of inspiration are sudden and unexpected. I hear the lines and must find pen and paper and let the words flow out. No logic or care for grammar or punctuation, just an embodied emotional response to a trigger.

This image reminded me of the many nights I am alone in my bed. When I left my fiance’ this became my place of grieving, alone in my bed, where no one was watching. I drowned here and I was rebirthed here. When I allowed grief to become a companion, the aloneness subsided and I found a source of love.
'And now my bed is full of love because I am alone in it.'