in march of 2022 i published a blog post about love and my journey towards accepting it. a year later and i am still in the same cycle of learning to love and be loved. this time however, there is a layer of grief that coats it all. it was always there, i just wasn’t yet ready to reckon with it. regardless, here i am. reckoning as always.
while there is sadness and grief all around me, there is joy too. grief is but a reminder of the loving i hold. and is shared joy not an extension of love? so then is shared grief not joyful? i’m grateful to have found community and kin whom i can grieve with. together, the lonely is less lonely.
my joy and grief are intertwined. they are fluid; they ebb and flow with one another, cyclically. grief is complex but it’s because of this very complexity that i’m able to find joy within it.
after eden knight.
march.
yesterday, the earth thawed and the sun shone and it reminded me of all the goodness i have yet to have, and it reminded me of god and it reminded me of spring.
today, another one of my kin was killed by what should’ve been her home. i hope the sun at least kissed her as she left. today, i have cursed every loveless thing in my path, god included. i am tired of the grief and the hollow ache in my chest where belonging should be. i wish i couldn’t see my breath in the cold, it would feel less hyperbolic. i am tired of writing eulogies and having to fight to honour dead siblings. forgive me, but i am tired of having dead siblings. i am tired of not basking in my joy for long, lest the guilt outweigh the grief.
i want to hibernate and wake only once spring has come. or the revolution. whichever comes first, i just need change.
i got tulips last week and wanted to give you one. they’re my spring flower but i killed another plant again and the tulips began to wilt so i tried to love them back to life first. i do that a lot, actually. playing god. i’m learning though. to live and let live, even when that means letting go too. i’m sorry you never got your flowers.
today, i will curse and cry and fill my body with so much smoke i won’t be able to differentiate its clouds from that of my cold breath. today, i am a sinner because it’s easy. and tomorrow, i will be holy again. and i will hold you. i will love you so loudly you forget the sun hasn’t come out. i will give you every wilted flower i never did. tomorrow, may i be delivered from sin. may the guilt dissolve and grief and joy equalize. love is the revolution. tomorrow, we will be whole again.