The Five Stages of Processing

The mixed emotions may be worse than grief.

The worry for my father as he deals with loss, the freedom from her further harm,

relief that never again will another breathy message reach my phone,

voicemails sending unwanted prayers, laced with attempted guilt

not sure if you remember me, but I love you

as if I could ever be blessed with forgetting the petty jabs, the manipulation,

the constant attempts at control.

How sad should I be at the loss of her narcissism?

Should it be more or less equal to the number of happy memories I can recall?

How sad is it if I have none, not one moment untainted by the monster she was under that sickeningly sweet surface?

This is not grieving, only processing, as trauma is wont to do,

and I don't have five stages to guide me through.