–Hospiceworld on grief, bereavement, mourning
It can help to write it out. Feel, write, feel, express.
–Kelly Zenn
Fiery orange emerges on the horizon as the sun dips past the
hills. Another day passed. Neither she nor the day seemed to notice each other,
the sun rising and falling without touching her pale skin. Her only recognition
of the passing days seems to be her continued reliance on the sun’s respite for
her own sleep. Tuesday is quickly fading into the past, but she does not
remember the day, which of the billions, she is currently living through as she
retches into the toilet. The soup she heated on the stove just 40 minutes ago re-emerges,
now causing spasms in her esophagus, still warm. Her mind locks onto yet another
piece of her past that she wishes she could get back: lack of any appetite. She
was withering away, quickly losing lbs, but at least it was passive, rather
than this full-bodied physical repulsion. Starving her grief was much less
unpleasant, now all she can focus on is food… eating her way to renewed
happiness, but she never finds it. Along with having to deal with the stomach
bile, she has the added pain of feeding her grief–giving it life. As it grows
she feels it overtaking–her entire being becoming overheated and pressurized.
No longer able to be ignored, the fiery pain pushes her from inside and out,
attempting to squash her into nothing. Perhaps she should let this happen;
perhaps she would turn into a diamond. She knows that is wrong, though. If she
gives in she will not magically transform, she simply won’t ever be able to get
back up. So, she wipes her mouth, swigs some water and Listerine and attempts
to re-immerse herself in her reading, her way of escaping the pressure.
She cannot seem to submerge her own racing mind under the
author’s words. Frustrated, she wonders how much longer books will be able to
hold her–she’s been able to read for shorter and shorter stints before the
dark-eyed images appear full force in her mind. Maybe she should just lie there
and let them take over; maybe attempting to ignore them will just prolong their
stay. But she knows better, she’s tried that trick before and they always
return. The dead black eyes of her mother’s corpse are now embedded into her
existence. She throws the book down, upset that it is only 324 pages and it has
taken her more than two days to get halfway through it. She has a lot of books
to read, a lot of worlds to visit and words to ingest, but the tears are
streaming down her face now and everything is blurred. She stands up, wraps her
blanket around her shoulders and runs to the bathroom, turns on the shower, and
hopes the steam will help to calm her… she knows where this is going and she
does not want to go there. She is hovering over the sink, snot dripping in
slimy streams into the basin. She looks at her face and feels an overwhelming
sense of pity. The first flare of flames: “WHY!” She punches the mirror. Why
can’t he be here to snap me out of it, how could he leave me like this, I
needed to hang onto him, fuck him. “FUCK!” She bangs her forehead on the edge
of the sink. For a moment, there is a peace, but just one moment and then the
intensity resumes and her body starts to shake. She falls on the floor, huddled
on her side, sobbing. You can do this, please, you can get out of this! She
thinks this to herself, but she can’t see anything but black anymore and she
isn’t sure if she can resurface on her own, she hasn’t been here by herself
before, he was always there for her, until he wasn’t. Her thoughts raced by so
quickly she couldn’t assess any of them, just swirling, and a deep ache in her
stomach. She has forgotten herself, now. Just as she begins digging her nails deep
into her creased forehead, attempting to rid herself of the pressure, she
stops. Her body falls limp and resumes a steady pace of breathes.
The cold floor is the first thing she notices when she comes
to. It is as if someone pressed the reset button and now she has to try again. Malfunction;
reset!
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