reading grief

Earlier this afternoon, I read Donald Antrim's essay from the New Yorker about his grief from his mother's death called "I Bought a Bed." I then read the first 70 pages of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. I can barely bear to read these things; longer pieces on death and loss steadily grind my armor down so that the open wound of my sorrow is exposed, which makes me cry.

Poetry helps.


Lullaby

I would not sing you to sleep.
I would press my lips to your ear
and hope the terror in my heart stirs you.

--Reetika Vazirani