It’s me.

I wonder what I’m supposed to do with all this grief?

When getting dressed feels like a magic trick, and I’m no magician.

When my apartment is a relic of every room him and I laughed in.

When I can’t seem to change my bedding because his scent is still on it.

If I’m being honest, everyone tells me to let go. But I don’t know if I can.

I’m miraculously talented at carrying dead things.

Like my mothers drug habit that changed the projection of mine and my sisters lives.

My father’s anger,

It sits at the forefront of my teeth and I tear apart any relationship that’s too vulnerable.

I use humor to cope with not wanting to continue breathing.

But god,

Why am I still breathing?

I feel like I need to be erased some days.

My mistakes have made home inside my chest,

I don’t know how to evict my emptiness.

I don’t know how to tell my sadness we don’t have time for her today.

I don’t know how to love myself enough to walk away.

But god,

I need to know,

She says “tell me how you’re not a good person.”

“I hurt someone I loved more than anything. I hurt my best friend.” I’m now choking on my tears.

There was a long pause that seemed to stretch to infinity.

“Name the ways you aren’t.” She says softly.

I thought about my coworker, whom I barely knew, noticing he seldom ate during lunch. So I bought food, pretending I ordered just a little “too much.”

An old man at target checkout bumps his cart into mine and asks who the flowers are for. He says “I love flowers.” The sadness in his eyes spilling over his smile. His loneliness dressed up as small talk.

I bought the flowers, turned to him and said “they’re for you.”

A blue haired women in the shampoo isle, her sniffles gradually becoming louder, she explained her daughter would have turned 21 that day had she not drove that night. We stood in the silence together. I hug her and she says “I needed that.”

My therapist says “keep going” her pen on paper for a few minutes now.

When my father would beat me in the closet while my step mom shoved my shirt in my mouth so the neighbors wouldn’t hear, I quietly thanked him because now I’m not afraid of any man. My fear of a raised hand permanently erased.

I thought to myself at a young age, there has to be a meaning to the bleeding. Because the things I love have teeth, has anger, has grief, my father is human.

My therapist stops writing. She looks at me with tears in her eyes and says “empathy and resilience. Sometimes we get it wrong when loving someone Brandyee. But you don’t give up wanting a better life.”