A Place For Everything, And Everything In Its Place

A place for everything, and everything in its place

I hold my grief in my scalp. 

I hold it on my ears, the tip of my tongue. 

It is not always pain, more an itch. 

I scratch

But muscle memory makes me think I itch when I do not.

It is simply the act, the motion of itching, scratching, pinching, scraping.

It is not calming, it is not painful, I do not enjoy or hate it.

Instead I itch.

My sister holds her grief in her hands. 

Her elbows, her teeth.

Hers is pain.

She hates her grief and so she holds it with her fists, 

tight, but moving and flinching with her elbows.

She wants to bite it, make it painful so the hurt becomes more real.

She wants a reason to hurt.

My mother holds her grief in her feet. 

In her words, in her spine.

It is not good to hold grief in the feet and spine, it makes it much harder to walk. 

But

Unlike my sister, she lets it go, very easily. 

Pushing it away. Giving it up.

But it takes ears to be heard, to get rid of the grief. It takes thick skin, it takes silence. 

And so I hold my grief in my heart, to make room for my mother’s.