This all sort of came into my head today during my lunch break walk. I'm too lazy to put line breaks in, but it is in the form of a poem, normally. I want to read it to my mom but I think it'll cause her pain in some way:

*******

GRIEF (Gaping Raw Insane Endless Frightening)

I walk hard and fast and cold rain stings
my face, frozen little pinches that heal
as they hurt. My shoes dig into my right foot.
I savor the pain. I�m being a martyr for you
which is both sickening and completely normal.

The memory of your eyes, the blue
blinds me and burns an image on my brain
stem, my brain stem so very much alive
when yours died.

I beg you to be in the treetops or the sky
or to see your face in the puddles, some sign
of you, but nothing comes of this. I cannot
feel you like others do. I cannot hear your voice
the way Mom does or smell you the way her sister does.
Where is my plumeria? Where is the hippie stink
that I hated when you were alive? The sweet and
acrid oils you anointed your dreadlocks with. I�d
soak my bed sheets in them now.

The pieces of you left to touch: a gathering of your bleached
out hair. It sits in a blue plastic baggie. It deserves a satin
case. I�ll see to that. Your hand prints in plaster. I fit
my fingers inside your own and notice that your stretch
was a little larger. Where are your clothes and where
is your jewelry? Did he really rip most of it to shreds or
break your turquoise necklaces like he did your beautiful head?

I wait for the ball of bile in my throat to clear, this little
egg of emotional vomit that creeps up from my stomach
and lingers in my esophagus. It chokes me. I have to force
it up by picturing your limp, bloated body on the hospital
bed.

Your baby has been born and I imagine he�ll be a calming shade
of caramel unlike your boyfriend, batterer, butcher, whose eyes
are as dark as dirt. He makes my blood boil black.

I hate you for not leaving him but I love you so much that
I can�t seem to walk you out or shout you out or cry you out
or curse you out of my every fiber because you are already
gone.
***************************************

I know her ashes should be arriving soon. I think someone will have to sign for them (they were mailed here) at the post office. Her ashes. Her ashes. I still can't fucking believe it.

do the jerk * do the frug