It hurts in places
I never knew existed.
Like how my fingertips ache,
and a mournful scream
lives in the back of my throat.
There is a black hole
where my heart once lived,
dense and ravenous,
swallowing light,
devouring warmth,
collapsing joy
into nothing.
Some days,
the void feels large enough
to consume me,
completely.
But still,
I wake.
Still,
I breathe.
And somehow,
without noticing,
I’ve grown strong enough
to carry it.
Not because the pain has lessened,
but because it’s changing me.
Sometimes,
the pain wants to cry out
I love you
loud enough
to reach you.
But those words
would fall into a silence
you no longer fill.
I wish I’d said them
a thousand more times
when they still had
somewhere to land.
I wish I could say
I love you
instead of
I loved you.
But if this grief
is just love
with no place to go,
I will ache
in all these new and strange places.
Willingly.
And I will wake up every day,
and breathe, one breath at a time.
Because this pain
is simply love,
wearing a different skin.
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Grief doesn’t ask for permission, it just arrives and remakes you. If you’ve ever loved someone so deeply that their absence feels like gravity itself, this is for you.
We don’t “move on.” We move forward, with the weight, with the ache, with love that still needs somewhere to go.