Some days
I almost feel like myself again
I laugh at something small,
forget the weight for a moment,
breathe without it hurting.

The world softens
just enough
to make me think
maybe I'm healing.

I can stand in the sunlight,
let it warm my face,
pretend that time
is doing what it's supposed to do.

And for a while,
it feels true.

But grief is patient.
It waits in the quiet,
in the space between heartbeats,
in the way a memory
slips in uninvited.

And then
I see something,
hear something,
feel something
that reminds me of you.

And I break.

It isn't loud at first.
Just a crack
a breath that catches,
a chest that tightens,
a name I almost say out loud.

Then it spills over.

All at once,
like I never made progress at all,
like every "better" moment
was only borrowed time.

I cry
for what I lost,
for what will never be again,
for the version of me
that existed before the ache.

And when it passes,
I sit there
in the quiet aftermath,
tired of rebuilding myself
over and over again.

Because that's what grief is
not a straight path forward,
but a circle
that keeps finding its way back
to the same broken place.

Some days
I am okay.

And then...
I cry.

Penned by my hand on the 19th of Aeguary, in the year 1000 AF.