Departure

“Sometimes you have to lose to win” ~Emmanuel Jal

A whisper, a weak shy friend, a wilderness within and a world that is unseen. That is what it is like to grieve someone. You can’t study grief; you can only feel it. It is a loss and a finding that what you most want was right behind you, but you can’t stop and turn to touch it again. It’s the end of a brilliant road for one not two, but it feels like they still belong to you. You barely feel the pain because the unrest is too great; you put it to bed and refrain from feeling attachment again. Attachments get hurt the most. You don’t want to feel the loss again. So you become meek and mild tempered and mourn in silence. The person you love becomes taller, like they were always meant to be but now you fully see. 

Your identity is in my fingerprint as your hand never left mine. The red light in the traffic never slowed you down; it was run or fall to the ground. It was too much to feel. There is no leaving or staying. It’s just watching out the window begging you to turn around, do the right thing. I know what it is to miss the night.

There are lines we do not cross, a famous actress said about someone spoon feeding her after a car accident. But what I would give for that love.

What is riveting love? What is it like to be the one someone can’t live without?

It’s a grief for myself, for what others have not found.

Gold road twists and turns. It’s the brilliant road which mourns. AIive and new I follow it not you. 

Yet there are times I turn around, my screams of loss no longer a sound.

It’s just emptiness that stretches beyond time.

It’s the realization you were never mine.

I hope you don’t mind that I moved on.

Is my heart numb? Does it feel too much?

Sunrise falls down when people sleep in like it’s their greatest sin.

My loss is my win.

You were the carpenter but I was the painter of wood of my grandpa’s. He beat you to it.

You can’t create from true love’s kiss because you wanted to sit behind a blank page and fill it with your shame of a past love, hiding that you aren’t enough and that you abused her and then used me against her…only to do the same to me with your next love.

It’s all a bluff and a bliss that is ignorant and cannot forgive.

I was the only one who didn’t see through it.

She tried to warn me about you.

It was the silence we fell apart. The unsaid was left in the bed where you laughed that I was too easy to be with.

I am not.

I am.

I am not.

I am.

A war within my mind. I want love and to hide.

I want to hold you and to run.

I want to be loved.

I want to be loved.

I want to be loved.

But now I feel that I can read your mind.

I can see the strategy behind your care. It keeps me thinking you are really here. But you are ready to let go anytime, you just scream as I cry because I’m too sick to know love isn’t so.

It wasn’t until I let you go that I became a mother to myself. A longing that was hell. I watched the wind turn to ice as I saw you lose your mind over your vice.

Women were just mice that you mishandled then destroyed, all because you said boys will be boys.

Well guess what? I am not a toy. I am a joy. I am a healer. I am a friend. I am the one where the story ends in a good way.

Because you see there is nothing left to say. We block; we mock; we stop caring about what the other says. Then I realized we never truly met. You were not that person. You were just an act. So I’ll let you know that I lived through that. You will never be tricked to love as I was but I know one day you’ll feel something real. And in that feeling will be the loss you cannot heal. You may never be human to know it; but your life will show it. Your cards of a house fall down because you see I’m not just a mouse. I am the one pounces. Your efforts are sand through the fingers, they never linger. They change all the time. I am only ever mine.

I am only ever mine.

Ever.

Evergreen.

Evermore.

Ever After.

No happily.

Just Unseen Brilliance.

Begging the one she loves not to call her a whore.

I am not the one you bought in a store.

I was the one who cradled you at times you acted a victim and cried when I realized you were the villain in my life.

Because of you I almost died by suicide.

So now I suffer in a new way.

I no longer have a crutch that rushes me through lunch so we can come together without love.

Without love.

It cannot exist without love.

Intimacy cannot exist without love.

But I can exist without either.

I just rise from the ether.

Ether brings out the leader in me.

Against men like this.

I stir the pot; there isn’t a lot I can make from it. I barely taste you now despite the traces left on my skin.

You told me it was your favorite sunrise because you got to watch it with me.

You said we are lucky for the time we had together.

I should have known that meant you would leave.

--

Grief is how we emotionally survive loss. It’s the cost of feeling. It can be not enough and too much. There is no way out of it. It spirals and spins and comes in stages and does its own thing. It’s the voice you lost when you want to sing.

It trips you when you want to dance. It makes the first move when you want to say goodbye to an ex. It stalls, it draws out the best of you - the one that needs to appreciate what is true. Now you do. 

But there’s nothing else to come from it other than heartbreak, is that what you said?

I dream of a dream where we meet. And two souls stand in for us so we can just be. So we live here and they live there and maybe everywhere. But I dance where you dance even if I fall. It is better than not feeling at all.

Grief is every hue of gray in a sea of stillness where you can’t breathe until they come back but they never come back they weigh you down. You sleep in in the morning holding onto the fabric of their clothes like an old sweatshirt with their favorite sports team or maybe college. You haven’t washed it since. As long as you still have something left you win.

You miss the simple things. The boop on your nose. Tickling. Distance is not the remedy nor is letting go but sometimes you have to let it be when your loved one goes home. They take your heart with you so you are standing hollow but yet whole. It’s where they go that we don’t know but we find a way to be with them and also alone. Together but not. The fruit that never rots. The cost of love. One day they are there and then they are not.

You take the invisible hand of who you thought was invincible. But they are just human.

Yet you feel the good in what they created.

It’s not the end. It’s just you remake the end without them in mind. There is no mend to a heartbreak. You just learn to live with it. They are the only ones to stay in your mind as those alive can fail you too. You idealize the one lost until you become unglued. There is no pain greater than a goodbye never said. But what’s worse is if it was never meant. You don’t hold onto regret because you gave them true love and don’t have to walk away because it was a bluff.

Grief is a crime of the heart that it won’t let someone depart.

The silence that makes sound.

The stars that cannot be counted.

The road that twists and turns but never rises.

You may turn to vices.

But it’s time to throw your dice.

Ālea iacta est!

You no longer live a lie.

But you still lie that you’re fine.

You want to be a better person but the better person of you two was the one whose sky was pure blue and yours was shaded by a cloud of mist. What exists in the mist is that there is still feeling in all the numbness. Even though your mind is reeling. It’s better than stealing the hands of time so they can come back as if everything was alright. It will be alright. It will be alright. It will be alright.

I cannot promise you that.

Just promise to be authentic.

Or lead with love as the lesson.

That’s who you attract if you are.

You won’t replace them.

You won’t erase them.

You won’t blame them.

You won’t shame them.

But you’ll always miss them…even the ones you never knew. The strangers we have yet to meet or pass by on the street is a discovery left unknown as you wallowed and wailed into your own withdrawal from the world. There are those who lock eyes with you and know that you care. To live with grief is to tempt fate and dare it to stare back. Even if you see nothing. Or your own reflection. Or their face. Or whatever trace of life you could have lived with them. Everything leaves but your humanity is intact. You find you can live with that.

And it all matters, even at the end. Even when we have nothing left. Because we know to go on. Because we HAVE TO. 

There’s no way out of grief. It just consumes and breathes for us. 

What is the sniff?

Maybe their perfume.

The chill of winter cannot compare to a life without them there.

Yet they are at the same time.

They exist in the snowflake that cannot fake existing. Nor can the feeling.

It’s kept in a concentrated amount that the brain can handle at a time. For fleetings thoughts and feelings we cannot flee from. And they aren’t able to break the grief, so we break up the trauma until it’s a puzzle that we cannot complete. They aren’t there to complete it. It’s a paradox.

The greatest moment of your life is when you meet someone who is able to boop your nose. But then the nose closes up and you can’t breathe right. It’s their spite. You’re getting to live life and not appreciate it! 

You’re the only grief that matters. Because I saw the goodness slips from you.

But in the final moments of any life…one can say “I love you” to make it right.

I’d chase for you through a thousand mirrors as what you see is me in you. Rest in me. They shatter; They beckon; They call. You want to remove them all. We see us inside. There is a torment of your mind. But make up your mind. Do you want me near? Or to leave here?

-

Dear You…

Are you sleeping right now? Or are you awake? I’m looking at the moon. If you do too…know I am thinking of you. All night. I stay awake thinking of our fight. And the light you lost. And my sight regained. I cannot remain. I cannot raise myself to finish the lies that we are alright. I must leave your side.

But never your heart.

Warm Regards,

Me

-

It’s all to make you feel something isn’t it? The magic in the mess. We kissed for the first time like it was our last sin, to be tied together through everything. There is no way out. No ground to stand on. No voice to shout. You are gone. I do not belong here. I am standing on your grace. I wish I could take your place.

-

A lost childhood

I can’t remember your face…

I can’t remember…what I forgot to say.

I scream and scream for you to be here.

You disappear

Into the wind.

Into the valley.

Into the mountain.

Into the trees.

Be here with me.

Your joy and magic left you. I see your childlike wonder holding on. It’s got a hold of me too. It is all that I long for.

To see the little kid in you again.

To see you not leave it.

I want to be kids on the playground where we played magical games and had deep thoughts and connected on everything.

You cut it off; I was gutted for life.

I want to get it back.

I want to get all of it.

My childhood.

I tap your back.

I say I am still here.

There is no fear.

I am not holding back the love. I give it freely to you. All you have to do is look into my eyes. They will always hold a surprise for you:

I got to be a part of you and partners in crime. I took away the lie. We are loving each other for life.

I will be your rain. I will keep you sane. I will take the blame. Just start over.

I’ll see you again. One day…my old friend.

Me.

My inner child holds your hand for we are one.

I am the adult who meets her needs now.

Wake up. We made it. We’re on the other side.

But you are silent and still.

The grief of my life swirls into senseless sky of imperfect life. But I am here. 

And I dare to stay.

That’s what makes it okay.

I draw the dreams we used to play.

No amount of torrential rain can tear us away.

Me.

We.

Us.

You.

Then.

Now.

Never.

The space between who we are and who we want to be can still be salvaged.

All it takes is to move the mountain.

Faith won’t take you there. Not right away.

It’s the climb itself that breaks one’s strength.

You zero in on the top and forget how to hop.

You forget how to play with life itself.

And then you fall.

The earth is your friend.

It reminds you of how you began.

And that I will never see you again.

Except if I stand in your place.

I will make us the same.

The inner child will win.

Even if…

No one else ever sees it in them.

It remains for all of life waiting FOR a life.

We do what we do to get by.

And then it’s over like a blink of an eye.

This moment carries meaning in its way but what I need most is for you to stay.

Don’t be carried on in dreams and silly things.

Don’t rush to the playground.

Don’t jump in that puddle.

Don’t fall into a muddle.

You don’t have to solve life like a puzzle or fix everything.

Just swing with me. 

We’ll stay in the stars looking down on the world knowing we will never depart.

Sarah Jeanne Browne is a wisdom collector who assisted Tiny Buddha with such projects and then formed her own philosophy; writer for Forbes and other popular self-help sites (and now deconstructs self-help as the industry can be misleading); speaker for organizations such as The Peal Center, Pennsylvania Youth Leadership Network, The Woodlands Foundation, Reimagine, various podcasts and more; activist for human and animal rights; innovator and problem solver such as creating a way to connect with kids for EndCAN - LOVES: Listen, Open Up, Validate, Explain, and Solve Together; brand and social media consultant; and lived experience speaker and writer with bipolar, dyscalculia, and AuDHD.

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