Life as grief

The dictionary definition of grief is this: '1) Deep mental anguish, as that arising from bereavement. 2) Annoyance or frustration. 3) Trouble or difficulty.'

What I interpret from all of these meanings is a lack of finality. A lack of real explanation. What these definitions say is that, this is how you might feel after losing someone that you love. I believe grief to be a state that you enter, and never leave. Grief is like turning over your pillow to get the cold side, and finding that it is baking hot.

When someone close to you passes, people have this habit of telling you that things will get better with time. What they don't tell you is that with time, memories become even fresher and your pain eats away at the core of you. What is it that makes accepting death so difficult? This learned attachment to people around us makes us resent the inevitable.

How are you supposed to grieve? If it is merely something you feel, then how do you express it? You don't. You become inward and cold, distant and quiet. Because why should you have to feel this way when all you did was love? It's so consuming that, when a certain amount of time has passed, you don't consider it to be grief anymore - it's who you are.

I bet we all feel like this, we all notice that something is missing and we pretend that we don't know what it is, because then we would have to open something up inside ourselves that we would rather not. I just want to say that grief is universal and that we all harbour these feelings because we think that they matter only to ourselves, and maybe they do - but we should share them nonetheless.

And so I will start - on this day, a year to the day my Granddad Ken passed away, the man whose very image stalls the air in my throat, I am writing him a letter. The only way I know how.



Dear Granddad,

I love you. A year ago today, your light was put out and I am still struggling to cope with your absence. I cannot think of you without getting upset so I try not to - I'm sorry.

When you lay there so calm, I had no clue how you were feeling. I can still hear the sound of you breathing and it haunts me from time to time. When you first went, I was angry at you for a little while, because I know you felt me squeezing your hand and begging you to stay, but you didn't. I know that was selfish of me, but who would want to lose you?

I miss your scent and your perfect rice. I miss Saturday nights sat up watching old boxing videos. I miss you.

You leaving has left a big gap in my life between me and everything else and it makes me scared. You know that I want to make you proud, you always said I did and I hope I still do.

I love you to the moon and back, until next time.
x

Making love

I set the mood. I light the candles. Burn the incense. The lights are dim and... soomething sweet is playing in the background. Maybe, like tonight, it's some Jilly from Philly. Something with a lot of piano. I'm preparing myself for the magic. (Maybe some sax in there, too).

So, I sit back and relax every part of me that I can. That feels good. Good in my skin - and now I feel ready to seduce... to touch that smoothness with my words and, complete it. Make it whole. Move my fingers over the surrface I am about to cover with my everything. Not a single part will be untouched by me, I want to give it everything I have tonight.

I want to be opened out and emptied. I want to be stripped naked. I want to be taken over by my own desires. I want to get... those... juices flowing. In and out and all around me. Working myself up and letting out all those frustrations.

The release makes me throw my head back, it's almost too intense. Too good. How do I process everything? And I just can't stop. The music that was in the background, is now in my head along with all those thoughts. Damn.

I love being this lost in my own passion. Uncontrollably lusting over... well, the thing that I most connected to. Who knew that putting pen to paper and scrawling my thoughts could feel so good? I am unashamedly allowing my mind to make love to this notebook that I enticed into my lap, using this pen that I carefully selected and hold with such certainty.

I set the mood... to write.

Prototype

The one. The prototype. The person that ignites fear in you when you lock eyes and they hold their gaze. Eyes burning to you, but it feels so good because you know that look is only for you. So intense you want to withdraw completely and escape. Run away from them just so they can pull you right back in like the first time.

So caught up in their essence you have forgotten who you are. Their touch is on your tongue and your buds are numb for it. And when you daydream about how they kiss, touch, taste, feel... it's all so vivid and real that you feel the tingle in your tummy and your shoulders drop to relax, because they've got you.

Your music becomes a part of how you see them now. When you trace your fingers over their body, you're writing out lyrics which are synonymous with how you view them, and how you want them to view you.

Your own anticipation overwhelms you. You don't like feeling so consumed, but you do. This is your way out of reality. Your thoughts are scrambled and every day life seems so daunting if it doesn't involve them. And you wonder if they're experiencing the same feelings that you are and if that is why, when your lips lock, you feel so complete. Passion surrounds you both, you're over indulgent, and when the two of you are as close physically as two people can be, it still isn't enough.

You're almost in disbelief. How is it that lips can feel so perfect against your own? And how is that hands, like your own, feel new every time they touch you? Make you pulsate. Steal your sensibility.

Everything is them, and they truly are everything... that you wished for certainly. Exclusively your idea of perfection and all yours, isn't that what we all want? Need? The prototype.

WOMAN

W - We are what we are. Whipped into shape and worn down. Wilted, but strong-willed, and we continue on our journeys, unmindful of our own struggles because we don't have time for sympathy. We are women.

O - One. We all are. Too much to get over and yet only we know, only we acknowledge our history and our present. And they all look on at us - the mothers, sisters, daughters and friends. They look on at our ways of life and they cast their eyes and judgements all at once, the blame game.

M - Man. We don't despise you, for you are part of us. What we want more than anything is for you to drink from our womanhood, our very essence, absorb it with your minds and love it. Us. Understand our meaning and our minds and make yourselves at home in our motherland.

A - And yes we all are, active. Autonomous, an entity of our own, not seeking validation or approval. Moving with the ages and with grace, we assert ourselves now. Act upon our desires, and aspire to be... more than you ever hoped we would.

N - No more of this. Not another word. Know that we dont care for your nonsense anymore because know exactly who and what we are. We are women. One. Woman.

(I performed this piece in May at my friend's event called The Scratch Night, in Birmingham. Check their blog out too http://maiacreatives.wordpress.com/)

Meditations

Incense fills the air. I can feel the delicate clouds of smoke passing through all areas of my physical and floating along my brain, tickling my heart with its overpowering thickness and depth. I am so aware of my body, with every breath I can feel the smoothness of it without using my sense of touch. As I breathe out I can feel the hairs stand up and catch the incense smoke. Not to miss a single bit, this is the greatest high. It's in my head, in my heart and all over me. Badu is singing to me softly in the background, something about how love can make it better... She's right. She's faint now, I can hear and feel my heart beat in my eyes. My breath is so silent I'm not even sure I'm breathing anymore. I have left my body, I can see it and feel its light and, using my mind's power... I am freeing myself of the negativity which dims it. The leeches of life, the darkeners of light, those thoughts which douse my flame. I am sucking them in, and blowing them out. I am powerful in this state, I am invincible, I am aware. How is it that I can know my body so well without being inside it? I have opened myself up and emptied myself out. I feel free, elated, careless...

This is everything, this is the ultimate high.

Loneliness loves company

Loneliness is a distant friend. 

it's there when you least expect it to be and every now and then it pops back into your life at the most inconvenient times, but in a strange way it's a comfort because you can always rely on loneliness.

You don't want it around but when it comes around you realise that it never really left you and despite that sadness it brings with the friendship it also brings you hope that consistency can be found in other states.

That same consistency can be found in people, in love. Wouldn't that be a nice surprise? If the adamance of loneliness and it's commanding presence was echoed by your surroundings and the people you love. In fact, love and loneliness are closer than we think. 

Their fingers are entwined, those fingers are cosseted in your mind and that is where they breed sadness. Because love is beautiful, but unrequited love loves company - that company being loneliness, despair. And that loneliness is always there. The distant friend. 

Is there a way to end this friendship? Will self-love take it's place and eradicate it's existence or, will it linger on? Waiting until you're vulnerable to surprise you again, catch you off guard...

At least it's consistent. 

Smile

Isn’t it amazing how many different meanings a smile has? In what situations do you smile the most?

The slight parting of the lips as they flatten out and reveal your teeth, or not. We wear our smiles like jewellery, it’s often used for costume and we only bring it out on occasion. A real smile.

Your smile speaks volumes because for every emotion or circumstance there is a different smile. I think that we wear our hearts in our smiles because no matter how much we try to control and lock away our emotions, a smile reveals all. The smile that is wide and unconscious, revealing all of the imperfections you find in it but as a gesture is entirely warming. The smile that is pursed, tight-lipped, offered as a pleasantry in company you’re not quite comfortable around but the lack of sincerity is so obvious, it is reciprocated anyway. The smile that is dead in the eyes – as though paralysed from the nose up, only your mouth smiles because this smile isn’t for you, it is for other people to see that you are OK, the ‘don’t worry’ smile that we all think we can pull off.

My favourite smile is the one for me. Head bowed slightly, in thought about what is, what isn’t, what could be and all in its beauty. So engulfed in thought and contemplation that the smile occurs long before I acknowledge it but smile even wider when I do. The same smile that I pass on to people in the street, as though it’s a game, with a faint hope that they will continue to share theirs. The type of smile that makes your body warm. You can feel it exercising your cheeks. The peak of your cheeks forming two bumps in your vision, eyes glazed and bright. Your head follows the direction of the corners of your mouth and rises ever so slightly so that the light catches your chin and nose perfectly.

What a difference a smile makes.