Grief

Grief is an earthquake inside my belly, pummeling breath out my lungs, past my tongue and out my wide open mouth. When will I be empty of this weeping? 

Again and again, I am thrown back into the office where we left her lifeless. I look around this memory as if I will find solace there, evidence that this was the kindest solution we had, but all I find is my punishment, which is confinement to this moment. I become stuck, while my mind plays the scene in circles, spinning me into a tight ball of coarse and knotted sorrow. I feel her. She is so soft. I speak gently to her and kiss her between the ears. She licks my hand. I stroke her back and belly. I hold her ribs while they move and then when they are still. And again and again, my body loses itself to sobbing.

I write the story here - a long rambling paragraph of choppy details. I write it all. Then I crumple it closed. I will not edit it into anything. It is rubble. A broken house I want to flee.

Tonight, I sit writing in a house that feels empty.