My mind shatters.
My spirit splinters.
Every metaphor for grief and loss and death that I've ever heard or read finds me over the next few days. I cannot hold the truth of reality without crumbling. I open my notes to try to write and put order to the experience. The phone app blinks open where I had left off, "be gentle with yourself". I close my phone. Those words are too hot to touch.
I don't even know if I have a self to be gentle with. There is only pain. And my pain is a socket connecting me to all of the pain in the world. I am electrocuting and I cannot let go. I stop looking at the news because I can no longer separate myself from anyone else. The war in Gaza in particular breaks me open again and again. The bombings are in my living room. The wails of the survivors all sound like my cousin leaving.
I don't know what has happened to me or why I can't even make a pot of rice without crying into it. I only know that I feel as though my skin is missing and all the heartbreak in the world is a howling wind against what is left of me, exposed nerves and all. I struggle against the words 'be gentle to yourself' and can only make sense of them applied to others.
Be gentle with the coworker caring for their hospitalized family.
Be gentle with your mother.
Be gentle with those grieving near and far.
That first week after my cousin passed, I have never felt more connected to world's gaping loneliness. And I guess if we are making morals, the greatest grief is that we are all each other have and we fail to treat each other that way.
