And Still, You Curtsy

We don’t always break the same way. Sometimes pain performs. Sometimes it puts on armor. Sometimes it just waits, quietly, in the gaps between tasks.

These three poems speak from different rooms in the same house. Grief, shaped and reshaped, disciplined, mythologized, folded away. Same pain. Three different ways.

One: Rehearsal

left.

left.

turn.

hold.

***

you left

and i held

still

like that would stop it.

***

right.

spin.

don’t breathe.

keep the line.

***

i kept your name

in my mouth

like a pin

to keep everything

from falling.

***

reach.

pull in.

stay long.

stay sharp.

***

you moved on

like the music changed

and no one told me.

***

hold.

don’t cry.

don’t shake.

just land it.

***

and i loved you like a locked room

with the curtains drawn,

waiting for you to knock,

knowing you never would.

***

i gave you

every soft part

and you taught them

to break clean.

***

step.

step.

step.

fall.

***

i wanted love

you wanted an audience.

***

bow.

smile.

bleed in your shoes.

***

again.

Two: Field Notes from the Jabberwock Slayers Union (Local 13)

today the grief put on your shoes

and walked to the end of the world

just to stand there, silent,

and not jump.

***

this is that kind of hurt —

the polite kind,

when the void

says “sorry”

after swallowing you whole.

it doesn’t echo.

it just closes its mouth

and digests you with grace.

***

he left / you stayed / the mirror didn’t

your own name feels made-up now

***

this isn’t rage.

and I’m not Dylan.

this is a love letter

to the days you didn’t scream.

this is a body learning

how to hold still

while its shadow runs ahead.

this is grief as a filing cabinet

where all the drawers stick

but one won’t stay closed.

this is being human

***

discipline whispers

its tidy little affirmations

while the pain

makes balloon animals

out of your lungs.

***

you keep going.

there’s no cavalry coming

to save you.

and there’s no side door.

***

you still believe in love

the way some people believe

in volcano gods:

carefully.

with offerings.

from a distance.

***

and no —

we don’t write about the ocean.

we write about the vending machine

that ate your last dollar

while you were trying

to buy mercy.

***

you slay what you must.

you cry where no one can see.

you bandage your heart

with duct tape and choreography.

***

again.

again.

again.

***

and you do not rage into the night —

you curtsy.

bleeding in your shoes.

Three: Inventory of What Remains

the pictures don’t hurt —

not really.

they’re just pixels now.

proof that you once

stood on the same side of a camera

and didn’t flinch.

***

it doesn’t ask to be named.

it settles in the pauses —

between errands,

beneath the grocery list,

in the quiet click

of things that still function.

***

not sad,

not really.

just weathered.

a stretch of land

where something might have grown —

not ruined,

not abandoned,

just no longer tended.

***

some mornings,

something mundane returns —

a roadside motel with ugly wallpaper,

the waterpark next door,

a song on the drive,

the chicken that made you choke —

and a smile arrives

before the ache catches up.

then you sit

very, very still.

***

lies are told

about the strong ones.

strength doesn’t resist.

it organizes snack duty,

remembers prescriptions,

folds grief into napkins

and tucks it beside juice boxes

with no visible seams.

***

the ache is not loud.

it doesn’t demand.

it merely reminds.

what never happened

still leaves a mark.

***

and when the next chapter

writes itself elsewhere,

there is no bitterness —

only a nod,

a wave,

a genuine wish

folded neatly and left

at the door.

***

and the ache,

unimpressed,

leaves a seat open

at the table

out of habit.

Afterword

This is how we endure

with rhythm

with grace

with grief tucked into our breath like thread

Thank you for reading. If these words live close to something in you, feel free to share them. Someone else might be dancing through the same storm.