"Three Months After" by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

I'm Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz and this is "Three Months After."

To want to disappear is different from wanting to die.

To disappear and to not have to explain to anyone, to talk to anyone.

To move to somewhere where no one knows you,

where you don't have to look at a single laughing face.

To elope with this grief

who is not your enemy

This grief who maybe now is your best friend.

This grief who is your husband,

the thing you curl into every night, falling asleep in its arms.

Who wakes up early to make you your cold thankless breakfast.

To go to that place where every surface is a blade.

A sharp thing on which to hang your sorry flesh

to feel something,

anything,

other than this.