in mourning

I don’t yet have the words
Only a deep, unabiding, suffocating grief in my chest
The kind that caves me in like a home crushed to gravel
Blurs my vision like smoke
Sends chills and red hot anger through my veins
The kind of grief that is also known as fury
also known as hopelessness
also known as complicity
also known as shame

I am not free
Dishes clutter my kitchen
Evidence of food cleaned, cooked, consumed, enjoyed

I am not free
My sons’ chests rise and fall
Proof that oxygen continues to fill their arteries

I am not free
The rain pours in buckets
As four walls and a roof protect my family from the elements

I am not free
Mothers scream, grasping their lifeless children
I am not free
The earth shakes as another building turns to rubble
I am not free
Dirt-smeared, blood-smeared, ash-smeared tears water the starved earth
I am not free
I lay awake wondering how much more grief I can take
I wonder this, an ocean and many borders away
My grief, vicarious, secondary, distant
Felt within a body that is strong, sustained, protected
My grief, set aside when inconvenient, when distracting
My grief, also known as shame
also known as complicity
also known as hopelessness
also known as fury.

Oh, we are not made for this.
I cannot end this poem neatly.
Free Gaza.