Grief isn’t always loud.

Sometimes it sits beside you
like an old friend
who doesn’t need to talk
to be heard.

Sometimes,
grief is not about what happened.
It’s about what didn’t.

The goodbye you never said.
The hug you never got.
The feeling of walking into a room
and being known
without having to explain a thing.

You carry it
in the way you walk,
in the way your playlist has changed,
in the way you write poems
because there’s nowhere else
to put the ache.

But even this—
this quiet grief—
is a form of love.
A way of saying
“That life mattered.
That version of me still exists.
I remember.”

And remembering
is brave.

You have Icarus wings,
And the sun is beating down.
Your halo is plastic,
Melting through your hair.
Think they’ll listen to you now?

Convincing as you tried,
A carnival sleight of hand,
Distracting with your clamor.
Did you hope they'd understand
While you dragged me through the gallows,
Lashed me with leather tongues,
Hoping I'd succumb to your reprimand?

Let me be a sacrifice
Martyrdom, a swinging pendulum,
Tethered to the truth etched on my wrinkles.
I’ll die never having known your lies.
No regrets will pile upon my station,
No weights to drag my feet down,
No anchor when the rope catches my throat.

I surrender nothing.

So tell them,
Talk in your Sunday masses
Tell them I was a demon,
Condemn then, condemn
And I’ll haunt in untold horrors.

Let you cast the first stone,
May it break my bones,
Truth seeps from my marrow
Bleeds out onto your stage,
How can you control them when..

You have Icarus wings,
And the sun is beating down
Your halo is plastic,
Melting through your hair,
Who will believe you now?