If I felt my grief

As often

And as much

As it is asking to be felt

I would feel nothing else

Give me just a little longer, I plead

I will make space to feel you

If I take too long I know

That you’ll come marching in

My grief always find me

Sometimes when I sing

Other times when I speak

On occasion when I dance

Nearly always when I write

Whenever I let myself be free

Whenever I loosen my hold

On the effort to keep it together

My grief will find me

And for a moment

I will find myself in grief

I try not to mourn out loud

I despise the spectacle that’s been made of our tears

But if you come to find me

When I am standing in my grief

And if my grief moves you

To discover where yours lives

Then do not bring me words of comfort

Do not bring me your concerns

Do not bring me pause or promise

Bring me nothing short of a heart that is ready

To love

A heart that is ready

To feel

A heart that is ready

To fight

Anything less just makes a spectacle of our loss

We grieve the same wounds

At once and again

We grieve the same loss

As it takes yet another

And we rage at the thought

That it could have been different

If only we’d learned how to love

If only we’d learned how to feel

If only the fight had been won

Our grief shows us where we are human

Our grief shows us where we are needed

When they try to silence our grief?

When they meet our mournful tears with their spiteful tear gas?

When they greet our humanity with contempt?

They show us how afraid they are to FEEL AT ALL.

They insist on remaining numb

Because if they let this grief in?

If they felt this grief

As often and as much

As it is asking to be felt

They would feel nothing else

They could do nothing else

Then finally face where they are human

Then finally face where they are needed

Then finally face how they’ve been broken

And in that stand off they might come to see themselves

And as they do they might come to choose

To finally learn how to love.

To finally learn how to feel.

To finally join us and fight.