Lines Between Living

Grief can disguise itself as your shadow,

walking besides you as if it belongs.

It feels so familiar like a comforting sweater,

a shield against the wind that cuts to the bone.

It can feel like the only friend who stays,

holding your hand, listening with the patience

of the oldest and dearest companion.

It speaks in melodies,

like the sweetest chorus of our favorite songs,

carrying the emotions we cannot say,

woven into the strings and keys of memory.

We run from it each day,

measuring time minute by minute,

through a single minute can stretch

into weeks,months,years.

Grief is heavy.

It engulfs, it suffocates,

as as if we lie in our coffin,

gasping for breath that never comes.

It hides in our eyes,

sending silent SOS signals,

prayers that someone will see

the pain we’re tucked away

and know how to ease it.

Grief never leaves.

Minutes turn into hours,

hours into days,

days into years

still,lingers.

We learn to carry it,

but must never forget its power.

For just when we believe

we’re learned to live with it,

it returns,

knocking us to our knees,

as if it were the very first day

it entered our lives.

As time passes, the veil falls away

what I wanted to be and what was are two different rooms.

I built a perfect scene out of hope and paper,

a stage lit for someone who never walked on.

In the backdrop I find no name for me,

no introduction, no ceremony  only footsteps

measured in stones that promised a path and stole my footing.

There were flowers, yes, soft and bright at first;

I stepped through them and watched them wilt beneath my soles.

Memory blurs where longing crowded the light;

the ache was haute couture, tailor-made illusion.

Now the seams show. Now the truth is simple and blunt:

I am not the audience, I am not the prize.

I am the one who unties the curtain and walks out into my own.

Tell me you have ADHD

without saying a word.

It looks like three screens glowing at once

phone, computer, Ipad

all alive, all demanding

all impossible to ignore.

Notebooks Scattered

pens uncapped

pages scribbled with half born thoughts

each one urgent

each one waiting

to be finished “later”

But when is later

What exactly have you begun

and where does it end

Your brain whispers this is fine

this is how we work

as chaos hums like background music

Therapist nods, listens

lets the words spill out

and still you wonder

if they will ever hand you

the answer your mind

has been chasing in circles

Slowly, surely

you try to stitch focus back together.

But then comes the question

if I tame this storm

if I straighten the wires

do I lose the spark that makes me, me

So you sit, suspended

between doing and dreaming

between chaos and order

asking the question

that never lets go

How am I supposed to be?