Extinction

My grief does not wail. It waits. Settles in the dust behind photo frames, drips down the inside of coffee cups, folds itself into corners where light forgets to reach.

I keep disappearing
in places I’m supposed to be found.
In clean forks.
In rooms that tidy themselves
as if by magic,

I am tired of being the afterthought
that comes before the apology.
Tired of being the proof
that no one else needs to learn
because I’ve already memorized it all.

Once,
I was a girl with bark on her palms
and tidewater teeth.
I buried poems in the garden
and waited for someone
to dig them up like treasure.

Now I write lists
And call that survival.

I think about death
like snowfall.
Quiet. Soft. Forgiving.
Not because I want to die
but because rest feels mythic,
and myths are the only stories
I’ve ever wanted to believe in.

Yet, I bloom in the morning.
because no one watered the garden
and someone has to.

Reviews

[Broken.buddy]

The way grief is rendered — not as spectacle, but as something settled in the dust behind photo frames — is masterful. Every line feels like it's been lived. I especially loved the transition from the mythic girl with “bark on her palms” to the one now writing lists to survive. That shift from wildness to duty, from poetry to practicality, carries so much quiet power.

The ending — “someone has to” — it’s not triumphant, but it's honest. Sometimes surviving is just doing what needs to be done, even when the soul is bone-tired. Thank you for writing this. It felt like you gave language to something many of us feel but can’t quite articulate.