Mori

Grief is a funny feeling. It visits me often, but it’s almost like… it looks different every time, but still smells the same. A comforting scent, like when you hug someone you love- and it lasts for a long moment. Sometimes it’s a gentle thing, and other times it is the type of embrace that buckles your knees. I am certain people tire of how frequently I display this affection towards my grief… but it is often the only one to keep me company. I grieve him still… the man of bones. There is not a day that goes by that my mind does not wander to him… Most days, grief touches me softly- a gentle brush against my cheek. But sometimes, in the dark, grief gathers me into a crumpled ball and locks me against its chest. Those are the moments that the man of bones fires through my neurons until he is made of flesh again. Every memory floods in, and I almost believe I can look on my messenger and see the little green dot. I have not seen it since the night he died. Since my very last dream of him, before my mind trauma-suppressed his suicide. I woke up weeping that night. And that was when I met my grief. Sure I’d glimpsed it before, but not like this. So close. Curled up in my bed with me, cold fingers brushing against my eyes and making rivers of all of my tears. Ever since then, my grief never strays too far. It stands in the corner of the room, sometimes looming over my shoulder… sometimes as close and intimate as a lover. It kisses my forehead, my eyelids, my lips… And suddenly my existence is repainted. My mouth tingles with the breath of life, my eyes see, vividly, the significance of insignificant moments. My thoughts whisper “Memento Mori, Amor Fati.” The man of bones… I thank him for my grief, that he left in his stead. I wish I could kiss his eyelids too, wake him for just a moment- to show him the art he created, even after death. How he colored my world with the grief that he left me…