for anyone who’s ever tried to grieve in verse

I rose to write a grief in lines,
To measure loss in metered signs.
But syllables refused to bend,
They broke before they reached the end.

The cadence caught on silent breath,
Each pause a shadow shaped by death.
I tried to rhyme what can’t be said,
But every couplet wept instead.

The beat, once steady, now betrayed,
It staggered through the words I laid.
No stanza held the weight I bore,
Each rhythm cracked beneath the core.

I summoned metaphors for pain,
But they dissolved like morning rain.
No image could contain the ache,
The metre flinched, began to break.

I stitched a verse with trembling hands,
A dirge that no one understands.
It asked for grace I couldn’t give,
For silence I refused to live.

So here I sit, the draft half-spilled,
The rhymes unformed, the metre stilled.
It’s not a cure, it’s not a balm,
It’s ritual, but not yet calm.
And grief, it seems, scans poorly in iamb.