Grave Matter

by Karina Halle

I try to stay silent when I first meet people, trying to figure out how to wear my mask, what kind of person I need to be for the conversation.

Life has a way of conditioning you, and when you’ve gone to the school of hard knocks, you expect those knocks each time.

My gaze drops to his hands, which are clenching and unclenching into fists in a way that reminds me of the infamous Mr. Darcy shot from Pride and Prejudice.

Grief is funny like that. It lives alongside you, sometimes in silence, and then a random thought, or memory, or smell will punch through you like a fist, your bleeding heart in its grasp, and you have to relive it all over again. I often think of grief as a cycle from which there is no escape, an ouroboros, a snake of sorrow eating its tail.