Hello my lovely readers
This post is perhaps earlier than expected. It is neither December, nor the start of my Seasonal Sonnets series, and it isn't the beginning of my poem a day project.
It is, however, a poem. Today is the global Children's Grief Awareness Day, and the end of Children's Grief Awareness Week in the UK. The theme this year is 'Lost for words'. That struck a chord with me. Not only did I find it difficult to talk about my grief growing up, but I used poetry as a private and more abstract outlet. And those of you who have been reading this blog a while might remember how scared I was when that coping mechanism, which I've used since I was very young, seemed to disappear entirely in the summer of 2017. Along with all other creative writing forms.
But, thanks to a combination of factors, from therapy sessions to the support of the bereavement buddies I've met through groups like Let's Talk About Loss and The Grief Network, my young adult self is finally getting brave enough to process my experiences properly. And, with that talking, my writing seems to have reappeared as well. So I wrote this poem last week, in honour of my child selves, and in solidarity with kids who are going through grief. I'm rather terrified about posting, but if it helps one other child (or adult), then it's worth it. Please know you aren't alone, and your feelings are okay and allowed.
Here, shared with love, is my perspective:
This is a note
for little me
in plural;
who wrote poetry,
at ten,
eleven, twelve, fourteen,
and all the
ages after then.
We wrote to
cope in 2001
when Gemma,
first, was suddenly gone
and kept it
up throughout our teens
‘til five in
a year made seventeen.
It was
easier to write than talk
for
otherwise our brains would baulk
and shout
the screams inside our heads
when yet
another friend was dead.
But, with
five almost at once,
we could not
find the write response
nor could we
find the words to say
and so our
minds were shut away.
I felt lost
for what to do
but now I
know that’s okay too.
Sometimes
words just won’t describe
the feelings
that we hold inside.
And
sometimes, though aged twenty-seven,
we need
rhymes that sound like we’re eleven
or younger
even, perhaps ten,
since that’s
the age we ‘lost’ dear Gem.
And that’s
the age I revert to,
when there’s
the news of someone new,
transported,
body, mind and soul;
fresh grief
reminds me I’m not whole.
And then I’m
sliced in two once more
as teenage
me lets out a roar;
an ever
present adolescent,
lip wobbling
after younger precedent.
These
foundations were what built my twenties
as the
numbers grew aplenty
and piled up
the paradox
that,
needing them, my words were lost.
My mind
became not one but many:
I had no
proper hold on any.
But, though
I have felt split apart,
my nearly
thirty-year-old heart
is learning
to connect the halves
that make up
all my little selves.
Voicing,
together, that we grieve,
we’re
finding some mutual relief.
Tasks of talking through our pain
have sparked
our writing up again.
Though I
still reel from the hurt,
I’m glad to
put it into words.
