The Loss That Doesn't Know How To Grieve

I don't think about the years that have passed without speaking to her,

until I do,

and then a mammoth wave of sadness overtakes me,

depositing me back onto the shore of reality,

where I’m left fetal,

choking once more on my own bitterness and resentment.

This remains the loss that doesn’t know how to grieve itself,

for though my soul is clear and nourished by my truth,

my heart is starved by her choice to ghost me from her reality,

for a choice I made out of love,

but one she then subsequently made out of pride,

so it seems.

Pride is far more powerful than resolve.

Where resolve has weakened as time has gone on,

pride has stepped in,

quick to judge,

even quicker to provide ego with the fuel she craves for surviving the long haul.

There are moments where I am crushed by the weight of glimmering enlightenment -

moments that speak to the wisdom of age and being the bigger person,

moments where I find myself without a king's pillow for my heavy, proud head -

but when crow calls out to be nibbled, and a dose of humble pie whispers to be swallowed,

I seem to always find myself without the utensils for either

for I packed them away long ago

in a box marked for her,

along with my broken heart

and a promise I would not break the seal

without her first reach.

I imagine that in our more tender moments, the white flags of our souls cry out to offer themselves to the other in forgiveness (or, at least I know mine does),

truce at the very least,

but the beast that is named "I'm Right"

now rules the inner world that is Ego.

Both hers, and mine.

I try on the "I'm wrong" size for the umpteenth time, as if to reassure myself that it still does not fit.

I imagine forgiveness as though it were a picture I could send with an SOS that will reach through the biosphere and meet lovingly with her heart.

But in the end, she is lost in her own story with her own flaws,

and I am lost in mine -

a story of wounded hearts gone awry,

of pride and pain on a collision course with time,

and self poised for battle with destruction.

Yet over and over I come back to this:

How do I grieve a loss that should not be,

for a wound I feel I did not create,

for a heart that seeks only to be loved again.

Do I walk away?

Am I the one to extend the olive branch simply because she will not?

Is that a pill I’m willing to swallow?

Is that a risk I’m willing to take?

What would YOU do?

©Chris Colyer

January 23, 2019