I had a conversation with my mom last night. Grandpa is not well, she told me. He's dying, is what I heard.

So am I, I thought.

I ate dinner with my friends and their kids tonight. I needed 2 years to heal from one of my first break-ups, she told me.

So do I, I thought.

I screamed at God or you or maybe both tonight. You're an a**hole! I yelled until my sobs cut my screams off.

So am I, I thought.

I wept in a friend's bed tonight. He's not making healthy choices, she told me.

So am I, I thought.

I watched the stars and sat outside while I cussed out God and you both tonight. You lied to me and I needed you, I sobbed.

So do I.

Today I laid on the floor of a Somali grocery store and tried not to pass out.

I fought the demons of my mind and my heart, which were coming out in the physiology of my body.

"This is a new low" I thought, as I tried not to get sick all over the beautiful fabrics on the shelves.

To have and to hold, to bloom and to bear, to cherish and to love.

"You're in shock, you're in shock, you're in shock" I repeated to myself as I stumbled outside.

This is a never-ending nightmare, a hellish dreamscape, a grief unimaginable.

"Have grace with yourself, things are not supposed to be this broken" I whispered into the couch.

To sting and to bleed, to weep and to mourn, to wound and to dishonor.

She has a name.

After all, she has a titular role.

Sometimes, she'll go by other names. My personal favorites are Anger, Sadness, A Filter, Pretending, Comparison, Expectations, Faking It, Perfectionism, and Silliness, amongst others.

But one day, she whispered her name to me, so softly that I thought it was just the wind.

"My name is Grief... my name is Grief" she repeated to me.

I cried at the weight of her words.

For I already knew her name, but I didn't want to believe it. But there it was, out in the open. Vulnerable and real.

Some days, I slam and lock the door in her face, ignoring her knocking.
Other days, I don't even bother to get up as she steps lightly into the room.

I hope someday to give her a hug and thank her for her years of wisdom and hurt, and how the two are inseparable.

There's something else too. She told me it the other day, under the too-long absent winter sun as I wept once more.

"I'm your sister... I'm your sister" she whispered, gently and lovingly.

It was as if everything exploded and then froze in a thousand pieces in the air.

The frozen pieces stayed there, while my screams did not.

They tore through the night and only the stars could hear me as I mourned, "I'm dying, I'm dying, I'm dying".

The pieces stayed in the air for months, looming overhead.

Until today.

They are mirror shards. And they are piercing me, they are piercing me, they are piercing me.

The unexpected villain. The fickle sin. The heaping grief.

There is blood everything. And I am weeping, I am weeping, I am weeping.

I hold an impossible mirror above my head, just out of reach.

The audience can't see it, only me.
They clap and laugh and grin while I do my routine.

Meanwhile something hangs overhead.

So I'll do the dance, I'll put on the show, I'll do what they want.

But I scream within,
for mirror shards are no fickle sin.

"More! More!" they chant.

So I hold up the mirror instead.

But they know no difference.
For the mirror,
is what they've always been fed.

I wept for myself today. A younger me, that is.

For what I wish I could tell her. For what should have been.

I mourned for her years of pain and apathy and feelings of invalidation. For what should have been.

I would give her a big hug, for all the ones she didn't receive.

I would tell her to be brave, but to remember to cry too, for what should have been.

I would take her bra shopping and celebrate her womanhood, for what should have been.

I would tell her about my own pain and trauma. I would teach her what empathy is, for what should have been.

I would encourage her to be honest. I would be serious with her and teach her about grief and sadness, for what should have been.

I would tell her that it's not over. And that she is not who or what others think she is.

I would tell her to smash the impossible mirror she is holding up, for what should have been.

And I would hold her. So, so close. For what should have been.