15 September 2019
From Megan Devine’s Writing Your Grief Course – an exercise inviting your grief to introduce himself/herself to you.
“Hi baby”, she whispers seductively, irresistibly huskily. Sexy. Hips swaying, her smoky grey silk dress rippling in the gentle breeze. The biggest smile I’ve ever seen on her face. A grin that looks genuine, for real. She seems so happy to see me. Skin glowing. Hair lush. So healthy. Teeth pearly-white, sharp and pointy, glistening with the scarlet blood of the most recent heart she’s ripped from a body I love. And dropped, carelessly, mercilessly, at my feet.
“Hi my sweet one. My delicious love. It’s me – your bestest bestest. Your most loyal, loving servant. Your High Grief Priestess. Your one and only love. Your true love. I am back. Woohoo! Yup. Right here”.
“Yes – it’s true, I did leave – just for a little moment. Just a tiny mo. I popped out for a pack of fags and a bottle of yum. I needed some sustenance. We need some sustenance. Just a few props to help us add a little atmosphere.”
“It’s tough going, hanging out with you. I knew I was in for the long haul, but even I thought I would get some respite”.
“What? Really? You missed me? I was barely gone. I promised I’d never leave you, didn’t I? I told you that I’d be with you from now on. It was a promise, and I don’t break promises. Why would you insinuate such a thing? I am with you, with you, with you… why can’t you get it?”
“Once I arrive I don’t leave. I am permanent. Like a tattoo splat across every cell in your body”.
“It’s called Presence. I love that word. ‘Presence’. It’s sort of a trick word, isn’t it? It sounds like it’s just for now. Right now, in this present moment. But it’s for every Now. Every single Now that’s right here, and every single Now that’s to come”.
“It’s all the rage apparently. Presence. I’m here now – we know that much – but I know I am in your future too. How cool is that? It’s wild. What power I get to wield. What fun!”
“But let’s just say I’m with you for each and every moment. Each and every breath. Each and every minute. Each and every hour. Day. Week. Month. Year. Decade. Yup. I know it sounds like forever, but it’s just too much to think of it that way. Overwhelming really. Even I wonder if I can stick it out, but so far there have been no exceptions. Grief is for real. The real deal. For ever. F O R E V E R. Real true love, only forever!”
“Let’s just do this breath by breath, okay? Stay with me baby. I know you are still fighting me, but don’t. It doesn’t need to hurt so badly. Well – yes – it does. But just feel me”.
“Ache for me as I ache for you. Love me, love me fully, wholly. I love you and need your love”.
“Where else can this love of yours possibly go? It’s mine. It’s for me. It’s how I survive. I absorb it all – all the love you still have for your sweet dead ones. It feeds me. It sustains me. It makes me so proud and full”.
“My oh my – what a heady mix – such love and pain… such sweet tenderness, such exquisite sadness, such remorse and guilt, and fearless, courageous love. Such innocent, honest love”.
“Such a tragedy to waste it. So I come along and take over. For a while. For the longest, everlasting while”.
“Just feel me. Just feel the deep, terrifying, wrenching, bottomless pain. The sweet agony of loss and absence and hurt and ripping out of your heart”.
“Not once, but twice. Not twice but three times. Not three times, but four”.
“And more. And more. And I will be with you always. For more. Yes – there will be more. Of course there will be more. What – you thought the losses would stop?”
“Oh baby – you are so naïve. This is us now. We are it. We are one. You and me, chica baby. Have faith. No. Not in yourself. Have faith in me. I am with you. For the long-term. You are mine. Sweet girlfriend chica. I am your other half. Your High Grief Priestess”.
“I told you I’d always be with you. In you. Of you. Over you. Within you. Wrapped around you. You. One, with you. I am you. You are me.”
She sighs. She breathes in deeply. She cocks her head to one side. Smiles like the cat that got the cream.
She breathes out slowly, then reaches over to stroke my throat, my heart, my lips. She opens her lips and mouth wide and smothers me with her version of love. The cold, misty, chilling version of love that the High Grief Priestess deals in.
She wins. Again.
