Many nights, I have to stop
Walking to cry.
Let my body be overtaken
By sobs. Sometimes when I’m lying
In bed at home, I’ll feel a sting
In my nose, my face will crumple,
And in comes the pain.
It starts in the center of my chest
Right where my heart is,
Then moves across my shoulders
To run down my arms and rest
In the palms of my hands.
It’s a perpetual grief, an aching
Background noise,
Tears I shed too often, and I wonder
How I will ever be okay after leaving
The only adulthood I’ve ever lived.
I’m embarrassed to tell anyone
But I want everyone to know.
I want to scream it across the highway
Like I did in the fateful autumn of my loss,
To stand in an empty church parking lot
Walking between love and loneliness on a tightrope,
Playing the same One Direction songs over and over
Just for comfort in the mornings…
And just to wail my grief in the nights.
Take me back.
If you want
Me to stay,
I’ll change my mind.
Elizabeth Day is an author, poet, blogger, and playwright from Las Vegas, Nevada. Her work has been featured in The Just Girl Project, Empyrean Literary Magazine, Contemporary Jo, Hey Young Writer, and Fterota Logia. She is a student at Southern Utah University studying English education with a creative writing emphasis and double minors in theater and film. You can find her on Instagram @itsanadventur.
Featured image by Jad Limcaco on Unsplash.
