on this day.

the five stages of grief.

lvii. THE FIVE STAGES OF GRIEF.

losing you was the second most painful thing i had ever felt. the first, the after you. when i asked for help because i was so scared of what was to come, that i feared what i would do myself, they read me the five stages of grief. 

  i. DENIAL AND ISOLATION.  

i spent my first morning without you thinking of you. i watched the ghost of you pour yourself cereal, sit down at the breakfast table, but you never spoke a word to me. i sat on the other side, watched you hide yourself behind the comic section of the newspaper. with arms folded over my chest, i waited and waited, yet nothing more than silence. you got up and without kissing me goodbye, you left for work. you never came home that night, but i missed your voice. i continued to play your leftover voicemail's until i had fallen fast asleep.

(it was hard because you weren't there to hold me.)

ii. ANGER.

the second morning came but you still weren't home. sticky notes plastered on the wall said your schedule was free. my veins boiled red when i walked over to the kitchen table and saw your bowl still full. did you visit this morning and lose your appetite after you saw me? i wish you learned how to like doing the dishes so i wasn't the one left to clean up all your messes.

(i've realized now that you were never there to begin with.)

iii. BARGAINING.

this emptiness that lingered within me drove me crazy. thunderstorms for the first in forever scared me, sent jolts through my body with every roar. lighting would flash outside my window and i would reach for you, but you were nowhere to be found. i thought about what could replace you as the days added up and the missing of you was starting to settle on my chest like the world had draped everyone's burdens on to my shoulders. it was getting hard to breathe from all this weight, so i began to distract myself. i know how to knit now, isn't that funny? what's not is that everything i knitted was made for you. even the pieces of my heart that even every line of thread couldn't fill.

(i wish i could go back, tell you how much you meant to me before you left.)

iv. DEPRESSION.

this is where it has stopped. the familiar friend i had made back in middle school has returned all because of you. i wish it was you that had returned. he sits where you used to, eating the cereal i poured for you, laughing at the comics like you had. he holds me tight when the thunder shakes the old house of ours, sometimes when he says goodnight, he sounds just like you and i cry. i haven't stopped crying since i opened the door thinking you were the one ringing the doorbell, when it was really the visitation of an old friend. one i never wanted to meet again since you came around. the one i never expected to collide with after your burial. 

(i guess i just wait for the acceptance part to settle in.
for years, perhaps.
just like i did with you.)