Contraction

verb

gerund or present participle: grieving

is layered, is growth, is setting

aside expectations and hope and

striving for an acceptance that's

bitter, like lemons? like acid batteries?

no, I think it tastes like betrayal and

sounds like assumptions from false

prophets, the ones who are more

trickster than they are kind, more

warrior than they are healer. We

grieve loss, but what if there was

nothing left to lose? Then what,

where will we turn but into ourselves,

and what shallow graves lie there

for us to sleep in when all this time

we were more fearful of our growth

than we were invested in our liberation, 

where will we turn to in our urgency

and what does swiftness obscure

from our vision when all this time

we were more fearful of our growth 

than we're invested in our liberation.