Grief

First, you cry. You cry, and cry, and cry, until you feel utterly empty, sort of like a ceramic ashtray I made when I was little, all dry and mish-mashed, and non functioning. You wonder what’s going to fill up that dusty ashtray; hate, anger, happiness, relief, respectful reverence?

(it’s rarely respectful reverence)

Then it fills up with grief. It tastes bad, like a bloody penny dripping with bile, and you cry it out like a bad flu, choking and wailing, and holding your stomach like a pair of bull horns. You ride it out. You wonder if it ever runs out. Then it does. The bile leaves you like a bad friend, and you’re cold and lame and numb. Then the numbness leaves too, and you are left an invalid with healthy human skin. Your skin is now a mask, a scaly monster slithering underneath.

You look for a revelation, a miracle, or just an explanation, and settle for a substance that will just bring the numbness back for a little while. Repeat until that substance doesn’t work anymore.

Then someone else dies.

Yeah. Enjoy, fuckers.