BLEEDING
Word Count: 328
She feels like it shows, like the half of her that was him is a wound gaping open, still bleeding where he’s been ripped from her side. She thinks she leaves fingerprints outlined in blood on things that she touches. Her clothes no longer fit her. Her shoes have walked on by themselves. He’s only been dead three months.
She wonders why they say it gets better. Things get easier, they tell her, it hurts less with time. That’s not what she finds. She feels she is falling down a hole and has lost sight of the sky. The branches held out to save her are brittle and dry.
They’ve said she is holding on too long to grief, she must let go and move on. She doesn’t understand how movies and dinners lessen pain. Why a couple hours’ focus on something not part of her own life would soften the slam of reality when the credits roll by. As dessert is laid down. As they leave with a wave and promise for morning and she enters her hollowed-out home.
She needs more time to make the transition. To accept that he’s not coming back. That the ashes she spread on the sea will not rise up and swirl back into body. That his side of the bed will never feel warm.
She went through each first time alone stepping one foot in front of the other, heel-toe, heel-toe, walking a tightrope that dug into the base of her soles. The grocery store where he’d drive the carriage. The diner where he’d pay the bill. Easily done, not beyond her ability, but still oddly wrong.
With time, yes, she doesn’t tear up as readily unless she’s caught unaware. And yes, she’s able to laugh. And she caught herself humming while working the garden and she’s eating vegetables now. But the ache of the gone of him lies just below surface. Fragile, just under the scab.
wow – that 3rd paragraph is so visceral it goes straight to the heart
Very tight and powerful.
Thank you. Writing has been cathartic, giving back whatever I put into it.