Your Struggles is What Creates Your Depth

HUSH.--

(June 2nd,2023)
As a kid I was taught that my grief doesn't matter
That my pain was weakness and not to be shared with those that I loved the most
I was taught that people had it worse so I felt silenced
I hid my tears in razor blades and anything sharp I could find
Since it was the only way I could cry freely
Something about the numb pain it brought
that made the tears dry up
If I ever tried to speak
My voice was hushed so I wore headphones and blasted music and tuned the hallways out
Every stern look became a tear
Yet the bathroom walls always knew my secrets
It saw everything and never judged
In my home and at school
It was the safest place until it wasn't
Some days I wish I could go back and redo every moment in my life
If I would have felt the grief swallow me whole would I have stopped blaming myself sooner
I wasn't the cancer that killed my grandpa
Yet my parents at times made me feel like I was the disease he carried inside him
Like being his granddaughter didn't hold any gravity
Like his death wasn't the perfect excuse for Insanity
I'd do anything just to feel the stubble from his beard brush my cheek when he'd kiss me there
To hear his soft but powerful "I love you sugarplum"
The only person in my life that made that love surge within my whole body
To think that I didn't stop blaming myself until his death anniversary became older than how long I even knew him

How my mom has blamed me for her heart issues
To the pacemaker
To everything
Every time she wheezes now I still find myself wishing it was me
To feel like you basically killed your mom
Because that's what you were made to believe
Then tell me to quiet that grief

To think that you told me to step away if I started crying at his funeral gathering
The whole time I felt the pressure in my chest ready to explode and every breath was caught in my throat afraid if I breathed too deep a tear would slip out
Like it wasn't okay to express how much it weighed when I lost my first and only love

It's peaceful these days grieving without your approval
Without your say
Without feeling like this pain I feel deserves to be pushed away
I grieve out loud now because it's been dark in the silence
But I know that even if I scream that this grief is no way near loud enough as it should be