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.

My life was built on discipline, devotion, and love so consuming that I feared it might one day swallow me whole. But never, not in my darkest nightmares, did I imagine that love would be the very thing to unmake me.

Instead, it’s as though I’d been erased so gently that I didn’t even notice until I was wiped clean from the page.

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.