I speak to Grief as if he were a man who learned my name too early.
He sits beside me without asking, heavy as weather,
familiar as breath.
I tell him he is relentless. He does not argue.
He has never needed to.
He says, I only stay because you keep the door open.
I tell him that is a lie. I barred it once, nailed it shut,
but he learned the shape of my bones and slipped through anyway.
Grief smiles at that, the way someone smiles
when they have already unpacked their bags.
We talk for hours. Or years.
Time is something Grief dissolves easily.
He reminds me of everything I’ve lost.
I remind him of everything I’ve survived.
Neither of us wins.
At some point I realize
he has my voice.
The cadence of his sentences, the way he pauses
before the hardest words,
that hesitation is mine.
His cruelty is familiar.
His devotion, too.
I look closer and see that Grief is not seated across from me.
He is kneeling inside my chest,
tending a fire I refuse to let die.
I have been mistaking endurance for punishment,
love for suffering,
memory for chains.
I tell him, finally, You stay because I love.
Grief does not deny it.
He only steps aside.
I persist because I am faithful.
Because my heart, once given, does not learn retreat.
Because loving deeply carved a hollow
that sorrow merely moved into.