grief as siege warfare

i used to believe that grief was like a river, full of rapids and ever changing waters, deep to the banks in some areas and calmer in others. the river runs the stones smooth and the bones into nothing.

now i’ve changed how i feel. i feel like grief is kind of like siege warfare.

for me, anyways, in times of grief, i retreat inside, because it’s what i know how to do.

i cloak myself away, hide in my darkened bedroom both literally and figuratively with this weird hope that i could wait it out. i convince myself that i have enough good faith and good memories to wait it all out in the safety of my closed doors and drawn curtains.

but, obviously, that isn’t how things work. grief is a siege of the homesick heart and i’ve bled my reserves dry over and over with all of the death.

you can find me in the castle yard with the fool and the dead horses.

and i have only myself to blame for it. my own foolish avarice and even more foolish pride unable to concede any kind of meaningful defeat so i wear my grief like spikes in an iron maiden worn inside out and use my pain as a weapon and i’ve made it clear to everyone but myself when my grief is pretending to be anger.

did i lose you with the medieval horseshit? maybe i lost myself a little bit and felt like i had a better point to make about how the november cold makes me nervous with dry skin and i find myself thinking about death and using too much bubble gum lip balm.

why did all the big deaths in my life have to happen in such close proximity to winter, the season of death and cold. why did i drive by the christmas lights on the way home from the hospital where my father died? what about the blow up santa claus on the way home from her funeral with christmas carols on the radio next to that stupid the weekend song “i can’t feel my face”. she died taking cocaine, so i guess that was applicable.

wren died in the old punk house we lived in, slipping away without letting us know.

and i miss her.

you know, they called her “the iron maiden”? and yet to me, she never was.

i was the one unwavering, made of stone cold iron and hate.

and she was tie dye and marjoram, incense and weed smoke.

she was this happy laughing yogi and i was the master of arms with a sharpened blade in place of a tongue.

november is almost halfway over. i can’t tell if i am ready for december yet.

and january, is somehow even worse. my birthday.

another reminder that i made it through another siege.