- The Phases Of The Moon Speak With The Stages Of Grief -

- the phases of the moon speak with the stages of grief -

1.

The Loss: {silence}

The New Moon: {silence}

The Loss: Is this the end?

The New Moon: I suppose it depends on where you start. For some, this is the beginning. For others, this is the end.

The Loss: {silence}

The New Moon: {silence}

The Loss: It is so dark.

The New Moon: I know.

The Loss: {silence}

The New Moon: The ache will come in waves. The tides are always highest when the loss is new or full.

The New Moon: {silence}

The Loss: {silence}

2.

Shock & Denial: This is not the end.

Waxing Crescent: No, I suppose this is just the beginning.

Shock & Denial: The darkness cannot last.

Waxing Crescent: The darkness is eternal. It is the light that must fade eventually.

Shock & Denial: This is not the end.

Waxing Crescent: No, I suppose a cycle cannot end, but nor can it begin. For some things are forever.

3.

Pain & Guilt: It hurts

First Quarter: It will not last.

Pain & Guilt: Perhaps it should. Perhaps this is what I deserve.

First Quarter: Why?

Pain & Guilt: I could have...

First Quarter: You could not have. There are some things you cannot change. There are some things that are meant to happen. They cannot be stopped. I would know.

Pain & Guilt: It hurts.

First Quarter: For now. For this is just a phase

4.

Anger & Bargaining: If I promise to change, do you think life will return?

Waxing Gibbous: Do you think you can change?

Anger & Bargaining: Perhaps if life came back.

Waxing Gibbous: You can not barter with life or with the light. You will change when you are meant to. When you are ready. And they will come and go when they are meant to. When they are ready.

Anger & Bargaining: And who are they to get to say? Who are you?

Waxing Gibbous: I am but a phase. I am but the part of the moon the light is meant to hold tonight.

Anger & Bargaining: I would have given my light for theirs.

Waxing Gibbous: Light is light. It belongs to no one. It is not yours. It was not theirs. And who are you to command the light?

Anger & Bargaining: {silence}

Waxing Gibbous: {silence}

Anger & Bargaining: I am but a phase. I am temporary. The light will leave me too.

Waxing Gibbous:  But it has not yet.

5.

Depression: Is this the end?

Full Moon: I suppose it depends on where you start. For some, this is the beginning. For others, this is the end.

Depression: I think I would like for this to be the end.

Full Moon: But look how far you’ve come.

Depression: I think I would rather return to before the beginning.

Full Moon: But look, you are already almost there.

Depression: I don’t know if I will make it. I feel so empty.

Full Moon: But look at how full you are of sorrow.

Depression: {silence}

Full Moon: The ache will come in waves. The tides are always highest when the loss is new or full.

6.

The Upward Turn: I feel lighter. I do not understand why. For there is more darkness here than there was before.

Waning Gibbous: The darkness does not always have to be heavy. Sometimes the darkness is a mercy. Sometimes it is a chance to start again.

The Upward Turn: I don’t know if I am ready to start again without them. Not yet.

Waning Gibbous: Not yet. Not before you are ready. You must trust the light will turn when it is time

The Upward Turn: It still hurts.

Waning Gibbous: It will. for this love is not a phase, but this sorrow is.

7.

Reconstruction & Working Through: This is not the end.

Third Quarter: No, this is not.

Reconstruction & Working Through: There is more to life than the way it ends.

Third Quarter: Yes, there is.

Reconstruction & Working Through: There are ways to remember others without forgetting yourself. Life lies beyond this. I feel it.

Third Quarter: You must strive to find revival in the darkness. You must trust the light will come for you even when you cannot see it.

Reconstruction & Working Through: Even in the aftermath of loss. I will strive to rebuild a life in which their memory will last. A life worthy of the light to return to.

Third Quarter: It is not about being worthy. It never was. It is about spending your time well while you have it. It is about not wasting away worrying about the next phase but just existing in this one. And trusting the light will hold you and have you and leave you exactly when it is meant to. Do you trust?

Reconstruction & Working Through: I am trying to.

Third Quarter: Then that is enough.

8.

Acceptance & Hope: Is this the end?

Waning Crescent: People tell me that I am the end, and yet in all my years I have not felt like the end. I have not yet met it but I do not think it looks like this.

Acceptance & Hope: No, I do not think it looks like this either. But what comes after this?

Waning Crescent: I have heard rebirth comes after this. That it lays in the darkness. In the unknown.

Acceptance & Hope: And I will be rebirthed into a new life in which they are gone. Do you not fear the day when the light does not return for you?

Waning Crescent: Not anymore. For today is not that day. Perhaps, tomorrow, when the light leaves, she will not return. But today, she is not done with me yet.

Acceptance & Hope: No, not yet.

Waning Crescent: Not yet.

And the darkness calls to me with all the names my mother said were too soft for me

The shadows think I am delicate and I let them, try to let them convince me too

That somewhere something may yet still think I am worthy of gentleness 

The doctor tells me I might have arthritis at 9 am on a wednesday in november 

My shoes are wet, my coat is soaked, my umbrella is broken 

I have to catch a bus in time for class 

In 20 minutes, 19 minutes, 18 minutes

18 minutes

18 minutes

18

The cold is seeping into my aching bones 

The doctor tells me I might have arthritis

But he does not believe the MRI results

He says I am only 18

18

He says it should be impossible

For my body to be is such a state of

Inevitable disrepair 

And this is all I have ever wanted

For someone to tell me that I am too young to be this old 

That all this ache belongs somewhere 

That I am allowed to hurt

And that they are going to heal me

The doctor tells me I might have arthritis

And there is nothing we can do 

Which is of course not exactly what he says 

He says here are our options

And i hear 

There is nothing we can do 

I hear

This body 

A broken record 

Only getting worse 

The song you once loved eventually

Unrecognizable 

It's surface covered in scar tissue that runs

Too deep

To love back to healing

But you remember 

You remember 

What it sounded like

When it was capable of beauty

My favourite Poet gets married

And I lament to my friend that there will be no more heartbreak poems

And is this not the kind of tragedy we all long for

The thing about art and

Artist

Is that they are confusing most of the time

Until you have lived the heartbreak of a muse

Until you have lost a child

Or a childhood

Until you have buried your mother

Or resurrected yourself

Until you have spent a summer drowning

In your own oceans

Until you have forgotten the colour of the sky

Or his skin

And maybe this is why I am so

Confused

Because I have not lived this heartbreak yet

But every one of her poems was about a lover lost

And I think of all the loss haunting her love

I think of all the ghost girls under their bed

I think of all the poetry she wrote about someone else

And I cannot understand it

~

He tells me that he loved her for six years

That she was the person that knew him best in the world

He still says her name like he may yet summon her ghost

The consonants getting caught in his teeth

I imagine he tastes her with every mouthful of promises he makes me

All the songs he sings me reminds him of her

I keep them all like scars

~

He says he loves me

And I try to believe him

But it is hard when

All I can imagine is how he would have loved her till the end

If he could have

- to the poems I never had the heart to finish because of you

I want to shout at every passing stranger

Every person who thinks they know me now

Do you know

That I was soft once?

That I had long hair and

A small body

And a heart that could have loved you

Do you know that

I could have loved you

Once

I wait for someone to tell me

That I’ve changed

But they do not

And I mourn for the loss of me alone

She will never get to fall in love

When I do, it will not be the same

When it ends it will be an Antarctic winter

Perpetual darkness

Night amongst night

It will be a small dead star long dead

The ones that fade forgotten

In the oblivion of space

She would have done so much better

Her heartbreak would have been spectacular

Would have been Tsunami and supernova

It would have been beautiful destruction and art

It would have been art

It would have birthed revolutions even in her misery

It would have meant something

And even in the absence

Of condolences

I know she did exist

And I will always love you like you 

Are my first

And you will always love me like I

Fall somewhere inbetween 

The beginning and

The end 

And what can I do

But keep falling

Short 

of forever 

A memory that will not last

No matter how hard I try

To hurt you enough 

For the scars to linger

Even after I am gone