I Am Grief

I come without warning, in a darkness descending,

Placing you at the mercy of a death unrelenting,

I come in all manner of worldly circumstance,

I have the power to break your tender romance.

I wake you up numb in a vacuous thought,

Experiences like these bring us quickly to nought,

All you’ll want to do is climb straight back into bed,

To go to that place where we think it’s better to be dead.

I make you undone so your identity is rocked,

For months and months grieving beings are locked,

Throughout this grief neither one nor the other,

I am Grief and I have come here to smother.

There’s little wonder you have no appetite for food,

Your life’s turned upside down with no stability of mood,

Everything you once knew now makes little sense,

You can rightly ask, “Why such an offense?”

The hours drag much like a hellish or boring day,

And anxiety and depression will threaten to stay,

It’s states like this where we commonly despair,

And to hope beyond hope is to bravely dare.

I am Grief and in the grip of me,

No wonder there’s doubting of who you’re to be,

With a shaken identity, the target of deformation,

Bold and brash is the hope of reformation.

I am Grief and I’m here to remind you,

With me around life holds you true,

For, I might seem harsh, but really I help you gain,

Because without me in you God would not reign.

I am Grief and I’m a pilgrimage to travel,

Despite the threat I can cause your life to unravel,

It seems for a time it’s chaotic at best,

And times like these we have no access to rest.

Burying ourselves in a depth so low,

With faith, however, we can only but grow,

I tell you that I, Grief, come to advance,

Because I am taking you on a journey of chance.

I am Grief and if only you can know,

I hold nothing against you even though you are low,

Through each of the stages I gradually take you,

As the seasons change you gradually become new.

I am Grief and I’m normal to life,

A life that’s quite home to aberrant strife,

But when you are patient I will cause you to grow,

Everything within reason and it’s peace you will know.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.