Grief didn’t knock.

It picked the lock on my ribcage,
dragged in its suitcases without zippers,
leaving memory spilling all over the floor.

It set up a lawn chair in my lungs
and started charging rent in oxygen.

They tell you grief has “stages”
like it’s a carnival ride
you can step off when you’re dizzy enough…
but grief doesn’t sell tickets.

Grief hijacks the ride

and crashes it through the guardrail of your sanity.

It’s a jazz musician
playing solos on snapped guitar strings,
improvising in keys that bruise.

The world wants you tidy.

It hands you a broom and says,
“Clean up that sorrow, it’s dripping on the carpet.”

But I won’t apologize for the way my love still leaks.

Grief is love that forgot to pack up,

leaving open boxes in every room.

I’ve seen how it runs an empire
inside your bloodstream,
a whole skyscraper of ache
with departments arguing over my mornings.

Denial keeps calling to say there’s been a mistake.

Anger drafts lawsuits against God,
against doorknobs,
against the way clocks keep moving.

Bargaining leaves voicemails for the universe…

What if I trade my laughter for one more knock at the door?

Depression just sits in accounting, 

counting every breath that feels stolen.

And acceptance?

Acceptance is the janitor,
mopping at 3 a.m.,
whistling off-key,
pretending not to notice the mess.

Grief doesn’t send a calendar invite. 

It doesn’t whisper… 

“Hey, you might want to save those voicemails.”

You think you’ve got more time.

You think your mom will always be able to call you back.

Until one day she can’t.

And suddenly, those texts…

the ones that used to say

“Drive safe”

or

“Call me when you get a chance.”

They aren’t just messages anymore.

They’re artifacts.

Relics.

Museum pieces you hold in the dark,

pressing your thumb against the screen

like it might warm back up.

You even pull up her text thread 

hoping to see 3 dancing bubbles 

but only see a one-way conversation 

when you sent her 

“I love you” messages while she 

was still in the hospital.

Grief turns physics on its head.

It bends time like heat warps glass…
birthdays stretch into an hourless ache,
while ordinary Tuesdays
slip by like thieves.

It makes the absence heavy enough to flip the furniture.

I became a magician,

making my grief disappear

in front of people who didn’t know where to look.

Wore “I’m fine” like formalwear.

Tailored, 

practiced, 

but stitched with panic underneath.

Grief and I are now drawing up a roommate agreement.

It can sleep on the couch, but it doesn’t get a key to every room.
It doesn’t get to drive my body like a stolen car.

Some mornings, I make it coffee.
Some nights, I even pour it a bourbon. Neat.
Unlike everything it leaves behind.

There’s no graduation from this.
No tassel to flip.
No framed certificate 

for surviving
the curriculum of losing.

But I have learned this:
I am not shattered glass.

I am a mosaic…
every sharp edge still catching light.

My grief is not a malfunction.
It’s proof.
I once loved my mom so fiercely
it carved permanent initials
in the marrow of me.

So I’m not moving on.

I’m moving forward,
lugging this ache like holy baggage…
too sacred to check,
too precious to leave behind.

Love doesn’t end.
It just changes its address.