Grief is light, I tell myself in the middle of another sleepless night. Sometimes I try to keep myself grounded but it is impossible when you hold so much light, when you are so much lighter than air, so much lighter than light.
I think I could float away. I think I could be a star– just look how my name has collapsed into a sun.
Grief is a thing you can see in the darkness, better than anything else.
Even when I am not sad, I grieve, and I glow and I crackle like a neon sign, like a birthing star, like air when it runs through the earth with its arms open wide. I am almost entirely made of light now.
Grief is light, and everything else is heavy and dark and full of gravity and gravitas. Everything else is feet on the ground, is dandelions roots fighting in the cracks, is tall oak trees that whisper and sink into the soil.
On another sleepless night, I do not remember how to touch the earth, how to sink into her. I don’t know how to stay in my bed or stay at all.
My heart is in my hands, my hands are luminous, transparent. They blend into each other, they hold nothing, they shine and they love and they lose and they shine and they shine.
On another sleepless night, I am so full of radiance, I make wishes on myself.
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A friend offered a prompt “Grief is…” which made me reflect on the language of grief. How we often use the words heavy and dark for grief, and maybe, just maybe, that isn’t right at all.
rarasaur 