Grief Is for People

by Sloane Crosley

My grief for you will always remain unruly, even as I know it contains the logic of everyone who has ever felt it. Sometimes I close my eyes so that I can listen to it spread. So that I can make it spread. I run it up the walls of my apartment. I listen to it circle the doorframes and propel itself out the window. I can hear it clonking down the fire escape, cracking the concrete as it lands. Sometimes I hear it in the rivers, sloshing against the stone, or in the subway screeching to a halt. And then, because I cannot call you home, I call it home. I open my eyes and in a flash it comes back to me, zipping itself to my edges, bobbing between my fingers. It’s made a real life for itself here. Oblivious to its own power, it snores so sweetly on my chest, this outline of a woman whose time has not yet come.