Daughter of Grief

Here at the edge of the
empty, endless dusk,
there is an ocean—
I will walk there. I will go to
drown in the limitless.
I will go under in the
unknown and the unforgiven.

Every gasp is a snapshot
turning yellow, fading and
curling, and I will
travel that path until I am nowhere.
Who are you today?
I am Nameless. Fractured. Reduced and Ruined.
Withered and Spoiled, made worse to
merge with the bleakest shadow;
you cannot decipher any part of me.

Yet, I am still in service:
I am the tear you cannot cry,
and the silence you cannot abide.
I am the woman who will bow her head in
penitence, your attrition,
your self-justification; and
in your absence,
I am your presence; I am
your grief as you swim in the
river of excess or shift
your heart to another
place to rest.
I am your death.
And then, beyond all that is,
I am our last breath and the
final light that
shines on absolute darkness.

My skin is blackening in the
flame you set to burn
to still your shivering;
and thus what was unyielding
is now curving, a contracting shaving,
and when I am ash again,
I will scatter to multi-dimensions.
I will go to where there is an end,
and begin.
I will trek to the darkest well and
draw despair, weaving of
chaos the substance of life—
my warp, my weft to form a
portrait, and I will see that
I am what I could not be,
and all those things you saw in me:
I am none of them.

I will die and be born again
let loose of this heart, and
when I am gone from it,
there will only be this moment.
When I am lost, you will find
what you were seeking, within,
where we are a greater
emptiness revolving, dissolving,
evolving from wounded humans to
the face of God,
weeping,
and the heart of God,
trembling,
and the hand of God,
holding tightly to
a woman
shattering.