Grief Is Such a Cruel Turd

Grief Is Such a Cruel Turd.

This year, twenty seventeen,

Is among the hardest I’ve ever seen.

The weeks and days

Have been hard on me,

Prior to and including

October twenty three

Because Grief continues

To bare his teeth and bite me.
This I know is not absurd:

Grief is such a cruel turd.

The last few weeks.

Leading up to today.

Have stung my heart.

Shading my world dark and gray.

Grief slithers up to me

With his lips turned down

And he slaps me so hard

I can only cry and frown.

Some years, Grief waits

And crashes in after
To steal all my joy

And squelch all my laughter.

There is no way to avoid him.

He’s integral to life.

And he comes bearing gifts

Meant to reduce my strife.

But his one hand I have to hold

Allowing  his other hand to be so bold

That it will rip from deep within my heart

Those protective layers

That have been my protective slayers

Of unfathomable loneliness and pain.

He rips loose one layer at a time

As if our sons’s death were MY crime.

The first layer he rips loose

 is “love no more”, 
he tugs and pulls

Making a bloody gore

Of my sanity.

He continues soon after

by ripping “hug no more”

and “see no more”.
It really burns when he rips away

“laughs with no more”

and” touch no more.”

My tears flow as I cry

And wonder why

Must I

have to sit with Grief
Through all these years?
Haven’t I shed

More than enough tears?

Grief is such a cruel turd

I feel it is so absurd

That life is this way.
But now I’m able

That I know

I can be with other vilomahs*

Who’ve lost their glow.

And our painful stories we can share

Because we’ve learned how to care

In this most difficult way.
So now, all I can say

Is, "Grief is such a cruel turd."

*A viloma is a bereaved parent. I means: out of the natural flow, or out of the natural order.