Denial

I screamed in the halls of the hospital until my lungs burned and throat was raw. The pain didn't matter because I wasn't dead; and you weren't either. It just wasn't possible, I held you in my arms that very morning, I listened to constant sound of your heartbeat while I laid on your chest and didn't appreciate what would be the last morning I'd have you. But I kept screaming and thrashing because I knew you couldn't really be gone, I knew you were at home waiting for me, I didn't believe the doctors.

Anger

I was screaming, this time in the kitchen we shared, surrounded by your clothes and ceramic shards of dishes I slammed into the walls. You weren't waiting for me after I got home for the hospital, or after I woke up the next morning, or when I laid on the couch with the T.V. on, your picture clutched to my chest, and the stained sweatshirt I wouldn't let you wear surrounding my body. I'm angry at you for leaving me.

Bargaining

I'm not screaming, I'm pleading now. With your headstone, with God, with anyone who will listen, even in my own head. I would trade places with your corpse if it meant another second with you, I would go to church ever Sunday if I could just hear you laugh again, I would spend every single second giving to everyone else if I could just hold you in my arms. There's nothing I wouldn't do to bring you back, nothing I wouldn't sacrifice, take my breath, take my memories, take my mind. The only thing I can't bargain is my heart, you took it with you when you left.

Depression

I'm screaming. I'm pleading. I'm breaking dishes. I'm silent. I feel like I'm sinking into a lake that has no bottom, the weight of the world is pushing my deeper, like a lead weight resting on every part of body, mind, and soul. I'm reaching out for a hand to pull me up, I'm reaching out for you but I know you can't reach back. So I sink further. I'm not dead but I wish I was. You left a massive hole, a black hole, a hole that's sucking me in. I can't feel you, or hear your voice anymore. You're gone, but I'm still here, drowning.

Acceptance

There's a dull pain that no one tells you about when they describe the 5 stages of grief. I'm not in relentless pain like I was, I'm not struggling to breathe anymore, I don't break the dishes, now I write how about how I used to. I feel your absence when I wake up in our bed alone. I see the hole you left and it's not as terrifying, it doesn't suck me in. No one told me that day in the hospital that I would end up where I am, I made it here and it still hurts. You're gone, but time has proved you never left me.

I will not allow this pain to consume me

I will be strong and fight

I will come out of this hole I dug for myself

I will arise and take on the world

I will.

Sometimes I feel like my whiteness sits on my chest. I don't fit in with my dads side, I'm too dark. They touch my deep brown hair with a painful curiosity. They introduce me and include my ethnicity like its the second half of my name, it feels like an explanation. They can't just let it be, they have to explain why I look the way I do.

Sometimes I feel like my latiness sits on my chest. I don't fit in with my mom's side, I'm too light. They touch my olive skin with a painful curiosity, it's like a lighter shade of their's, it's like I was taken out of the oven too early. They introduce me and include my race like its the second half of my name, it feels like an explanation. They can't just let it be, they have to explain why I look the way I do.

I'm sorry I've been tending to the garden of distance and uncertainty that now lays between us. I can see you kneeling on the other side of the planter's box, your eyes green and welled with aquamarine tears, the acute sense of sadness in them, almost overwhelms me. It evokes the memories of the last time we saw each other. That noisy restaurant couldn't assuage the deafening silence between us. I don't think this garden will either. I'm sorry.

I'm a liar.

A dirty, no good cheat.

I lied when I said we could still be friends, I figured it's just something you say when it's over. I didn't think you'd actually take me up on it.

I lied when I told you I didn't want you to be around me anymore, I don't know why I ran away, you were warm and I loved you, but when I realized I had started running, I was in the middle of a dead sprint to elsewhere.

I lied when you asked how I was, I'm not doing "surprisingly great!" I should of known you weren't asking to tell me you were good, you were asking to see if it was hurting us in the same way. I said that so it would hurt us the same way, I wanted to drive the knife in deeper. I'm sorry.

I lie every time I stare at you when I think your not looking, I lie when I throw my eyes on the ground if you even flinch in my direction. I've been lying every time you text me and I reply 7 hours late with one word sentences. I lie when I pretend not to see you stride towards me, or pretend not to feel your familiar green eyes on me. I'd be lying if I said I don't miss them.

I'm lying right now. Screaming into this digital void for no one, hoping with an insane naivety that you might be screaming into the same one. I'm lying when I pretend not to hope that our voices meet and embrace the way our bodies used to. I'm sorry I'm such a liar, but believe me when I say, I miss you.

I saw this website on someone's Instagram. My first thought was to hate her, not because she'd done anything, but because she had the audacity to express what she felt deep inside, something I was scared to do. I was so jealous, a seething green eyed jealousy because I could never explain to anyone, that I wanted to scream, I wanted to shake every boy who'd screwed me over, and shriek at every friend who'd ever left me. I yearned for a courage like hers. She posted the hurt and the happy, and questioned the authority who tried to keep her silent. Finally I pondered why could I hate someone for using their voice, when all I wanted was to use mine?