I lost my loneliness today.
I scraped and brushed it
into the paint with blunt force.
It's over there on the canvas
covered with brushstrokes,
and my body aches
with the pain of letting it go,
of throwing it away.
It cried as I spread it thick with paint,
so I turned up my music louder
until its cries were drowned out.
The sorrow crept in,
so I painted more fiercely,
tiptoed and slipping in the wet paint,
drowned the canvas in water
until the harshness faded away.
The loneliness was still there,
but it wasn't mine anymore.
Things they don’t tell you about losing your grandfather on a Tuesday night:
When you wake the next morning, you still
need to get out of bed in time for work, you still
have to shower, dress yourself, eat breakfast, brush
your teeth and hair;
and when your mother calls
to check in, you have to comfort her because she lost
her dad last night;
and when you call your grandmother
your voice cannot waver lest you upset her, because
she lost a man she's known for seventy years and even
though she would never hold it against you, you still
feel obligated not to cry;