I didn’t cry that day.
Not the way a mother should
when the world splits open.
I think shock is a strange kind of mercy;
it stiffens your spine,
sets your jaw,
keeps you breathing when breath should fail.
I stayed upright
because everyone else needed a place to lean.
There were details to decide,
hands to hold,
people who needed me to nod,
to listen,
to steady their shaking when mine hadn’t started yet.
I wrote his obituary.
I wrote his sermon.
Two poems because one wasn’t enough
to carry the weight of a boy I made,
a man I loved.
I arranged flowers,
Photos and words;
pieces of a life
while mine quietly fractured beneath my feet.
I didn’t cry that week.
Not really.
A tear here and there,
but nothing close to the storm inside me.
Shock held the dam in place,
like I was made of stone,
like grief had missed me
when really it was crouched in the corner,
waiting.
But now,
God, now,
I cry every day.
The dam has burst.
I cry in the mornings,
in the car,
in the kitchen,
in the quiet,
in the noise,
in the space where his voice should be.
I don’t understand
how I kept myself together
outside his house,
waiting to be let in,
knowing he was gone
and still standing,
still breathing,
still whole enough to function.
I don’t understand
how shock made me steel
when I needed to be water.
All I know is this:
the tears I couldn’t shed then
have found me now.
And they come like truth,
like confession,
like the body finally remembering
what the mind tried to forget.
I didn’t cry that day.
But now;
every day is that day,
and the tears finally know their way out.
Nov 19, 2025
Nov 19, 2025 at 1:16 PM UTC
I didn’t cry that day.
Not the way a mother should
when the world splits open.
I think shock is a strange kind of mercy;
it stiffens your spine,
sets your jaw,
keeps you breathing when breath should fail.
I stayed upright
because everyone else needed a place to lean.
There were details to decide,
hands to hold,
people who needed me to nod,
to listen,
to steady their shaking when mine hadn’t started yet.
I wrote his obituary.
I wrote his sermon.
Two poems because one wasn’t enough
to carry the weight of a boy I made,
a man I loved.
I arranged flowers,
Photos and words;
pieces of a life
while mine quietly fractured beneath my feet.
I didn’t cry that week.
Not really.
A tear here and there,
but nothing close to the storm inside me.
Shock held the dam in place,
like I was made of stone,
like grief had missed me
when really it was crouched in the corner,
waiting.
But now,
God, now,
I cry every day.
The dam has burst.
I cry in the mornings,
in the car,
in the kitchen,
in the quiet,
in the noise,
in the space where his voice should be.
I don’t understand
how I kept myself together
outside his house,
waiting to be let in,
knowing he was gone
and still standing,
still breathing,
still whole enough to function.
I don’t understand
how shock made me steel
when I needed to be water.
All I know is this:
the tears I couldn’t shed then
have found me now.
And they come like truth,
like confession,
like the body finally remembering
what the mind tried to forget.
I didn’t cry that day.
But now;
every day is that day,
and the tears finally know their way out.
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