Grief Is for People

by Sloane Crosley

The past is quicksand and the future is unknowable, but in the present, you get to float. Nothing is missing, nothing is hypothetical.

He is my favorite person, the one who somehow sees me both as I want to be seen and as I actually am, the one whose belief in me over the years has been the most earned (he is not my parent), the most pure (he is not my boyfriend), and the most forgiving (he is my friend).

We fend off the worry that we’re taking our lives for granted by feeding ourselves the lie that we understand the value of their components. This belief is necessary for our choices, for the ordering of priorities.

They assure me I won’t feel like this forever. Oh, yeah? Everyone’s a psychic when you’re sad.

Who lacks a reason to kill themselves? Reasons are not the problem.

The miracle of life is not that we have it, it’s that most of us wake up every day and agree to fight for it, to hold it in our arms even when it squirms to get away.

PTSD employs a math opposite to that of denial: Instead of your brain convincing itself nothing has happened, it convinces itself everything has and is still happening.

Heavy is the enchantment of places you know you will never see again.