Don’t tell me it’s a process, don’t hand me your compassion map,
I’m not at peace with anything and I don’t need the wrap,
You want me clean and functional, you want me through the haze,
But I am burning red and ugly in the anger phase.
I’m angry at the doctors who said everything was looking fine,
I’m angry at the road they took without warning me or sign,
I’m angry at myself for every selfish cowardly choice I made,
And I’m angry at the universe for holding every ace and spade.
This is the anger, this is the part they murmur around,
This is the fire that comes before the grief gets quiet and heavy,
This is the three a.m. and throwing things and slamming doors,
This is the turning everything inside out on every floor,
The anger is the grief that hasn’t found the shape to wear,
The anger is the grief that has no other way to breathe the air.
I split my knuckle on the wall at two a.m., sat down hard,
And howled into the kitchen like something in the yard,
Not the polished kind of mourning that the sympathy cards prescribe,
But the ugly, animal, unwashed grief you can’t describe.
My brother called and said I needed to release the hold,
And I hung up the phone and stood there in the hall feeling cold,
Because releasing it on somebody else’s calendar and clock
Is the most arrogant instruction that a grieving man can get, you take that back.
The grief support group with its folding chairs and pastel walls and tales
Of mending arcs and hope and the particular details
Of how they found their footing — and I’m sitting there with both fists clenched
While every word of comfort from the front leaves me more entrenched.
Because you didn’t get the stages, you didn’t get the work,
You didn’t get the construct or the light or the forward lurch,
You got the last night and the last breath and the last word said,
And I’m the one still arguing with the air while you are dead.
This is the anger, this is the part they murmur around,
This is the fire that comes before the grief gets quiet and heavy,
This is the three a.m. and throwing things and slamming doors,
This is the turning everything inside out on every floor,
The anger is the grief that hasn’t found the shape to wear,
The anger is the grief that has no other way to breathe the air.
And maybe the anger is the most unvarnished thing I have,
Because it proves I loved you past the point of any epitaph,
And when it burns down to the ember sitting in my chest,
I’ll be left with something quieter — but this is what comes first.