I Will Not Pretend

On letting go of the need to "get over grief"

Photo by MD Duran on Unsplash

I will not pretend.

I will not pretend that I am over this thing they call grief.
How could I be?
It lives in my thoughts, in my words, in my voice,
in my songs, in my books, in my keyboard,
in the way my pen right now moves across this page.

I will not pretend that grief arrived because of the choices I made.
In life, in death, in dreaming, in hoping;
in trying, and failing, in loving and losing;
in the past, in the future, and in this moment.
Grief came because life came, yours and mine,
and I will not pretend otherwise.

I will not pretend that I do not want to be free of grief.
I would trade it for joy, for peace, for carelessness, for apathy,
for a million uninterrupted hours of sleep.
I will not pretend that voicing it doesn’t hurt;
that calling it grief is somehow easier
than naming every person, every loss, every ending, every thing.

I will not pretend that time has finished its work,
or that I feel complete inside it.
Even as the years gather, the pressure remains:
continuous, familiar, unwelcome and welcome all at once.
I want to move on,
and I will not pretend that wanting is simple.

I will not pretend that grief has given me nothing.
It has shown me what was wounded.
It has shown me beauty.
It has returned my eyesight, my hearing, my voice, my heart.
I will not pretend that grief cannot coexist
with gratitude, with joy, with love.

I will not pretend that each hour makes it easier.
How could it, when grief demands so much:
my time, my body, my thoughts, my energy,
the small gatherings of myself I try to hold together.
I will not pretend that I understand it,
or what to do with all its gifts.

I will not pretend that grief is gone.
I will not pretend.
I am not pretending now.

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