​

Grief pulls your strings
After letting you loose long enough
To feel the weight of another fall

​

Grief calls you inside
Locks you up
Takes you back to childish threats and tantrums
None of which make any difference
To what happened, what can ever be replaced

​

Grief knows your secret weaknesses
Your hiding places
Can turn the most ordinary, familiar places
Into alien landscapes

​

Grief changes your walk, your talk
Brings you unexpectedly to your knees
Grief ignores all your pleas

​

Grief will make you want to hurt yourself
Will want to hold you back
When time pushes you forward

Grief tries to convince you
That nothing and no one can takes its place
Grief will pretend to disappear
Then jump up in your face

​

Grief teaches you patience
Gives you no choice
Takes away your voice

Grief destroys all you have built
If you let it
If you forget to give in

​

Grief is a cleansing fire
Embrace it
Surrender to its demands
Grief knows the way
Within grief’s cave
Under the spell of its darkness
The real healing work begins

From Invisible Earthquake: a woman’s journey through stillbirth – published by Modjaji Books, 2009