To My Little Sister

Allow yourself to grieve

Discover the way his name sounds when spoken from a throat tight with tears

How it sounds thrown against the wall, shattering

Or whispered before you fall asleep, when you realize, painfully, that you haven’t said it in three days

Crush a pen in your fist and let the black ink trickle down your fingertips

Smear it under your eyes and through your hair until you don’t recognize yourself anymore

Feel the dull ache in your side whenever you breathe

The punch to your stomach when you the boy bagging your groceries reminds you of him for the fifth time in a row

Don’t stop until you are so empty you’ve somehow started to feel full again

 

Think of your heart as bruised, not broken

Swollen, discolored, but infinitely more sensitive

Experiment with how the world feels pressed up against it

Everything heightened

Realize that a violin sounds like someone weeping

And that stars look like pinpricks in the lid of a jar where we are all captured fireflies

Bathe in this new awareness

 

When even the sunrise begins to remind you of him, force yourself to watch it

Hike to the tallest hill you can find, wrap yourself in a blanket and good company

And watch as the tree branches are painted pink

Forget about the last time you watched the sunrise with him

When he leaves holes in your life, create something new to fill them

 

Examine your essence

There is more than just blood pulsing through your body

You are dusk, hot pavement in the summer, thunder that shakes the whole house

And you were so many things before you were his

Comments

Nate the Great

Very heart felt i can feel the words and i can feel the emotions in them.

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