Dear Unsealers,

Below you will find an attempt at wording the way grief slowed my heart in 2022. Two of my male cousins (sons of each of my mother’s sisters) passed 65 days apart from one another. Their spirits continue to inspire me to rise above and push forward with every day. I outlived both of them this year. Raw emotion has been the extent of coherent writing I could come up with. The rest has only been able to formulate through dreaming. Thank you for reading:

Where do I begin?
I’ve laughed a lot of it to the side; I’ve become hallowed to some of it, and the rest just lies right underneath the surface.
 
Underneath my tired, malfunctioning, fragile brain, I begin wrapping up my thoughts, since I just almost doze off because that’s what happens when I get deep, introspective, or reflective; my psyche overthinks and overheats, then shuts down. I’ve been wanting to write a poem, but this happens. It’s like ever since my cousin died, writer’s block has clogged my ability to speak, let alone breathe. It’s like I’m losing a game of being choked out, and sometimes I don’t want to tap out ‘cause the bruises never fade [cuz… the bruises never fade].
 
Instead, I’m back in the simulation of quote-unquote reality, facing this day-to-day, stumbling all throughout, like, “What can i-i-i help you with today?”
…
Maybe all my poems start with questions… or they have to be written when I’m pressed against the wall, so my thoughts just get to spilling, and when I’m asked how I’m feeling, really all I want to do is (exhale), because it makes me feel so small to carry on with all this damage.
 
 
I’m revisiting this poem for the third time ‘cause the last time I tried to get through it, another one of my cousins died, and his name is M, and I rep them boys proudly. It’s V and M ‘til the day I see cloudy.
 
I’m still not understanding how one day we can be standing together, and the next I’m faceplantin’ talking memories we were planning to the graves they’ve been planted in. *umh* Where do I go from here?
…
I’m even further away from writing my first love poem. Well, in this state, loss love underlies sadness, and in moments coupled with lack thereof, it can feel like a heart of attacks. The type that boils over, no explosion.
 
You know they say, “You don’t really start living until you’re 25,” and when I think of my heavenly halves, I’d argue that saying is a living lie.