The Stranger Named Grief

When I lost you,

I found a new companion.

He was there in your absence.

I'd never met him before, in your presence.

He was there, when you left,

Holding my hand, too firmly, but firm.

He hovers over my shoulder,

Whispers in my ear.

I didn't acknowledge him at first.

He was a stranger, someone who'd knocked on my door when I was still shocked, too shocked,

To do anything else but wander and watch and wait,

And wonder,

If you would ever come back,

Or if you'd just sent this stranger into my life,

To atone for the fact that you can no longer be the shadow at my side.

He wears a black tuxedo, sometimes a trench coat.

He doesn't smile, doesn't talk.

But his silence says more than you ever did.

I have conversations with him.

Him and his wordless speech,

And we talk for hours on end.

I haven't known him for long,

But somehow he knows my thoughts, my feelings, my secrets.

He knows how I cry--messy, pathetic sloppy tears that stain my face and run like broken, crooked violin strings.

He knows I never sleep, and that when I do, nightmares join me in bed.

He knows it's a struggle to wake up,

That I drag myself like a warden drags a prisoner or an executioner drags an accused to the guillotine.

He knows how I sit in front of a cold breakfast,

With dry eyes exhausted from inundated nights.

With red and swollen and empty eyes and a red and swollen and empty heart,

Shoulders bowed over a broken vessel,

Arms unmoving at my side,

Like dead, stranded things.

He is there when I have waited so long that the tears do come again,

One, two quietly down my cheeks,

Around the brim of my mouth,

Into my lips, where I can taste my grief.

It's salty and bitter and black,

But it's the only thing I taste,

The taste of your absence.

He is with me through the day and the night,

Never faltering, always in reach,

Always a breath or a choked sob away.

He has become the shadow at my side,

The confidante to secrets already known,

The reminder that you were once here,

But will never come back.

He has become both stranger and savior,

Both friend and foe.

The one thing constant with my thoughts.

He has become my grief.