Islands of Despair

Isolated, in silence, each island lets the waves lap along it's shore. Small waves of wetness. Of sorrow. Of hushed sobs and sighs.

There is nothing original or appropriate or helpful to say in the face of grief. In the midst of grieving.

How does the sun turn in this small sea when so many storms have come to force?

In the world that I'm used to, the land where I was raised, noise could block out the feelings we were and were not feeling. As a child we were never expected to understand black clothes and funeral parlors. Children are the only reprieve from death.

I thought that we were done with this. Done with tragedy. Done with crisis. Done with long nights and long nights and longer days. It is summer, isn't it?

Has it been a year? Has it been two? It hasn't stopped pouring. Was I wrong to hope for even just a handful of months or a year to just rest? Rest our hearts. Rest our souls. It's been nothing but hospital beds and hospital beds and black mourning clothes and flower arrangements and cemetery grass and all these awkward, swollen, silences where I can't think of even just one word to say.

Even just one word as a boat, a raft, a signal fire in the darkness. Just one word to bridge the great expanse across this table, these chairs, this room full of so much grief, this indefinite space betweens these islands of despair.