the beauty of grief

No one knows she cried her eyes out three days ago,
sat in her desk chair and wept, unable to see the screen.
No one knows how harshly she spoke to herself, flagellated
her already fragile spirit, lay on her bed with her forearms
pinching her eyelids flat, and made mad proclamations
against her weak, fractured heart. No one knows the hours
she’s devoted to circling her sadness like a vulture,
the mileage she’s worn into her soles, walking the hills of her city
in a series of unsuccessful attempts at forgetting.
No one heard the keening in the shower, or the thudding
of her fists against the dashboard. No one saw
the resignation of her shoulder blades against the back door,
or her palms curling under the kitchen faucet as hot water
eviscerated the dishes, or the half-moons of mascara
threatening stains on the duvet and her favorite t-shirt.
There are no witnesses to the indentation
her back made on the couch, reeling from the storm,
no audience for the unsent letters pleading her cause, no bleacher
of cheerleaders as she made herself breakfast, in spite of the great effort
it took to crack eggs, spread hard butter on thin toast.
No one knelt before her dabbing a cold cloth on her forehead,
or fed her spoonfuls of oatmeal, or kneaded the soft
tissue of her lower back as she bent, again and again,
to heave trouble out of her way.

She had convinced herself of her own ruin,
a fault line splitting her body in two.
Her lungs felt as thin as moth wings,
and she was certain her bones had been worn brittle,
stilts of a house helpless against a hurricane.

But this is the beauty of grief.

What she saw in the mirror was not
the deep ravine left by loss,
The war she was waging
had not hollowed her cheeks or made an anarchy
of her skin. Her lips had not unpinked from slaughter.

Instead, a pliancy and sheen had birthed from the rubble.
The eyes looking back at her were bright as promises
and it wasn’t the overhead light or the sudden April sun.
Grief had lifted the rawness out of her,
clutched at the throat of her darkness and pulled
until it lay silent and sleeping at her feet,
a feral dog fed and full,
and what was left was neither muscle nor wound
but horizon line, a ripe nothingness
some fresh story beginning,
etching her face clean.