Bourbon

You can grieve into things

If you want to

Don’t grieve upon something

Grieve into it

Grieve through it

Grieve like you lean

Grieve like you’re falling

--Then catch yourself

Don’t grieve that hard though

It’s unbecoming

I’m not talking about, about

Public displays

Tantrums

I mean--

They’re--

They’re really tantrums

In a way

We don’t feel any kind of way

About crying

When we’re young

We’ll cry on the floor

We’ll stamp our feet

We’ll throw shit

We don’t care

How wonderful is it

To just--

Lean into your grief

Like that?

You get older

And it’s…

Something else

I miss it, though

The, the--
Leaning into it

I miss being able

To do that

My older sister--

Never really knew her that well

We were too far apart

But one night she left to go to a dance

And she didn’t come home

And nobody told me why

My mother leaned into the grief

My father didn’t

And nobody knew

What the hell I was supposed to be doing

One time I didn’t eat

For three straight days

Just to see if anybody would notice

But everyone was busy

Doing something
And not doing something
And both take a lot of time

If you really commit to doing them

The right way

I remember watching my parents

Fall through that grief

And at the same time
I remember holding myself back

Even though a part of me

Wanted to fall alongside them

Not because I, I, I--

Missed my sister so much

Or anything

But because, because

It’s seductive, um

Grief

It, it--
Seduces you

It makes you stay in bed

It makes you, you

Snap at people

Say things

Mean things

It makes you hard
And sensitive
At the same time

Like, you can’t be touched
Or you'll, you'll--
You'll dissolve

It’s brutal

We don’t say that

That, that word

To talk about it

But it’s brutal

Grief

It’s a brutal thing

And you can’t resist it

There’s no point, no point

To, to, to that

You can’t lean back

That’s for damn sure

So you gotta kinda--

Go down into it for a bit

Go upon it

You know?

Lean up on it a little

And then--

Step back

Just--

Step back a little bit

It’s--

It’s a dance you do

I guess

I don’t know

I'm no expert

But I know a lot

I’ve--

I’ve had to do it

Too much

Too much I would say

The part

The grieving part

My sister, my father, my mother

Everybody

You know

At this point

It’s just about everybody

And so you lean

And you lean

And you lean

And you try, you try, you, you, you

You try not to fall

You try not to let it

Take you down