Grief

---

Emma Scott

 

I feed my grief extra mashed potatoes,

I let it sleep till noon and stay in bed all day,

I let it have the last slice of pizza and finish the pint of ice cream,

I let it waste its day away watching infomercials and trashy daytime television,

I let it show up late to class and give it an excuse to leave early,

I let it skip its morning run and have pie for breakfast instead.

 

I feed my grief laughter,

I give it a ticket to the amusement park on a sunny day,

I give it sour candies and tickled taste buds,

I give it a funny hat and a bubblegum pink wig to go underneath,

I give it a moment of comedic relief during the saddest scene of the play,

I give it a laugh track and a sitcom script,

I give it punchlines and jokes,

I give it its own sense of humor.

 

I feed my grief tears,

I cry for its lonely birthday party and melted ice cream cake,

I cry for the nights it ate dinners alone and cried itself to sleep,

I cry for a childhood that dissipated years too soon,

I cry for irrational fears transforming into a blurry wake of reality,

I cry for the times when splotchy skin and teary eyes were equated to weakness,

I cry for the person it misses the most.

 

I feed my grief acceptance,

I greet it with a kiss and a silly anecdote,

I bid it farewell with a hug and a tub of leftovers,

I open my arms and I embrace its heavy disposition,

I flush its crimson anger out of its baby pink pores,

I soothe its sadness with gleeful carelessness,

I absolve its encompassing ache of guilt.

---

 

Emma Scott is a junior from Cranford, New Jersey. She plans on studying economics and creative writing. When she’s not writing poetry, Emma enjoys baking, documentary film, and spending time outdoors.

This poem was written in Joanna Fuhrman’s Intro to Creative Writing course during the 2020 fall semester. Fuhrman selected it for inclusion in WHR.