Grim

by D.J. Krimmer

Grief is not sorrow. Sorrow is a guest who will leave. Grief is a parasite—it latches on, it feeds, it remakes. It is a rot that eats away at you and leaves only a husk. It is the weight pressing down on my chest with every breath, my dark shadow beside me, whispering I will never be whole again.

If I disappeared tomorrow, would the world just … keep turning like I was never here?

But time is a shrinking thing now. It used to stretch before me like a runway, but now it folds inward like origami.

But sometimes, when I let myself think too long, I ache for a version of me that never got to be. I don’t need statues. I don’t need my name etched in gold. But I want someone to read my words one day and pause. Just for a moment. And think, She was here.

“Love is love, Kane. The object of that desire does not make the feeling any less powerful or any less real,” I insist. “This beautiful old man clings to love. Can you blame him? Have you never known lo—”

I blink again, trying not to let it show on my face how much this gesture means to me. The piece of jewelry is beautiful, but more than that, the gesture says that he saw me. He remembered something that mattered to me and found a way to make it mine.

Everyone wears some sort of mask.

You can learn a lot about a person from their bedroom. Their passions and proclivities are on full display in that most sacred of sanctuaries.

as any good book lover will tell you, there really are two hobbies—reading books and collecting books. I scan the titles, looking

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell.

‘I know you despise me; allow me to say, it is because you do not understand me.’ ” I read the words aloud, remembering them in her voice. Madeleine.

Only pain. Only ever the pain. That is all that lasts, all that lingers, all that remains.

The smoke and the screams echo inside me while the one thing I cannot remember continues to haunt me. Madeleine’s last words.

“‘But the future must be met, however stern and iron it be.’

“Knowing you, feeling like I belong, not to somewhere, but to someone—I

“It’s okay to miss someone,” he says. “That ache means you remember ’em. And that’s a good kind of hurt.” “I like that, Seek,” I tell him plainly. “Then I hope I hurt you.” “And I hope I hurt you.” His smile glows faintly. “But, you know, the good kind.”

“All I do is listen.” “And it would seem there’s more power in that simple act than you will ever know.”

“Something kind of beautiful about the idea of a Mercy flower.” “Yes, well, something rather ugly about a world without Mercy, wouldn’t you say?”

“I’m not afraid of endings,” I say, facing him fully. “You should be,” he replies instantly. “I’m afraid of not being remembered.” “We’re all forgotten in the end, Rue. Merely a question of how long it takes.”

“Wish I’d left something behind. Some words echoing after me somehow.”

“I’ve been told it’s much better to rage.” “No offense, sprite, but you don’t seem like the rage type.” “When faced with that good night, Asher, I plan to ‘rage, rage against the dying of the light.’

Where every story I’ve ever lived or loved echoes faintly in the final beats of my fragile heart.

The way she told me once, “I’d rather have you for a short time than not at all.” I didn’t understand what that meant back then. Now I do.

Man is born free,’ ” I muse, hands clasped behind my back, “ ‘and everywhere he is in chains.’

“Love is for the weak, Kane. As you have now become painfully aware. And I,” I lean in closer, my voice dropping to a thread of warning, “am anything but weak.” He doesn’t flinch. “Love is the opposite of that,” he says with a pestering sadness in his tone. “Love is why, D. Whatever the question is, love is the answer.”

I helped him cross. I offered solace. He found strength. Now he moves on. The dichotomy of loss aches. Shrouded beauty. It is, as we are, more than one thing at any given moment.

Rue’s Lament What begins in the light ends in the dark. Heated wax melting into memory. Liquid pools formed from that initial spark. Every wick burns out eventually. Fear not the candle’s smoky finale Celebrate instead the way it burned bright Tendrils of grey-black smoke, the last sally Of a flame that flickered with all its might. The chandler crafted with wick and tallow Each piece meant to serve an earthly purpose So, burn your candles, lest they lie fallow Trophies to obsolescence for the corpus. Heat, light, and power dancing off the tip. Snuffed out, brief candle. Sweet life, what a trip.

Speak what is in your heart. Share your soul while it’s still yours,”

‘Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.’

Freedom is a phantom. Only the chains are real.”

“The pain you could inflict is nothing compared to the torment I feel now. Your power pales in significance against the magnitude of a lost love’s ache.”

The incessant noise makes time ooze from moment to moment in a sea of sameness.

What even is time? The monotony of it all fogs the mind, like watching sand pour through a frosted hourglass.

Sometimes, the lights flicker. Brief, stuttering moments where the world goes dark, and I think that maybe it’s all ending. A literal glimmer of hope in an otherwise endless numb. A proper end would be...

Silence fills the space between us. Not empty. Just full of things neither of us wants to touch. “I can’t feel anything,” I say. “Maybe that’s your mind trying to keep you going.” “I don’t even dream about her anymore.” Asher exhales slowly. “Maybe that’s your soul trying to remember how to carry on without her.”

‘May those who are lost be found again.’ ”

The soul outlives the body, and stories outlast our days on Earth. If even for a short time, that’s not nothing.

l’amour guérit.” When I give him a blank stare, he translates, “Love heals.”

“But you found your why, didn’t you?”

We can fight an unwinnable battle against our own impermanence, or we can face our own minuscule place against the backdrop of time and celebrate the moments that matter for as long as they matter.”

“Release yourself from what you cannot control. Give yourself the grace to be imperfect and to be comfortable with your flaws.” “They are as much a part of you as your victories,” Kane finishes.

“I tried,” she cries softly. “And that is enough,” I encourage. “You are enough.”

‘Lost Soul Found,’