Tell me, what does grief feel like?
Does it come in color or just grey and black shades?
How do I speak of you without groaning?
Without my eyes tearing while trying to smile at the same time?
I think of you in simple fragments,
On some days I shrug off the thought of you to the side.
It scares me to remember you deeply,
your memory will never leave me.
There are days when I don’t want to close my eyes
Days when I want to breathe you deep
And soak into your crazy laugh.
The day you died I woke up in pain.
Oh, my heart!
It felt like nails pierced through it
Crouching in fetal position, hugging myself,
wondering what sickness was visiting me..
I could hear my phone ring from a distance,
yet it was right on my pillow. It all felt like a dream.
All my life, I have looked at grief as a foreign thing
suffered by a neighbor, a friend…
That morning of your leaving, it hit me like an ocean wave
I used to be a spectator to other people’s pain,
muting their groanings not knowing my turn was coming.
Grief hit me like a tonne of bricks,
memories came rushing through vivid and hard.
We had laughed, held each other
like we knew it was the last time,
I had soothed you as big sisters always do,
encouraged you to go back to sleep
while whispering prayers for God to pull you through.
I never imagined you gone from me
my little sister, my best friend.
They kept saying dust to dust as they lowered you
into the ground, my heart caught in my throat,
my breathing, strangled and hot in my chest.
Nights after, sleep was hard to come by,
tears flooded my pillow every night.
How would I survive without you,
no calls, no hugs and no surprise visits?
Years have gone by and some days grief greets me
early morning. Some days grief sits with me
and gently reminds me
of how beautiful you were, Vimbai.
Moreblessing Size Tafireyi is a spoken word artist, published poet, writer, community development practitioner, and knowledge-management specialist. She has taught students from diploma level to PhD level on research, information literacy skills, referencing tools and publishing. She has performed at festivals and literary events in Zimbabwe and Southern Africa and her work has been published in print and online. She was introduced to the poetry scene at the famous Book Café and Acoustic Nights at the Zimbabwe Germany society in 2009. Moreblessing Size’s writing can be described as deep and thought provoking.