To My Little Sister
Allow yourself to grieve
Discover the way his name sounds when spoken from a throat tight with tears
How it sounds thrown against the wall, shattering
Or whispered before you fall asleep, when you realize, painfully, that you haven’t said it in three days
Crush a pen in your fist and let the black ink trickle down your fingertips
Smear it under your eyes and through your hair until you don’t recognize yourself anymore
Feel the dull ache in your side whenever you breathe
The punch to your stomach when you the boy bagging your groceries reminds you of him for the fifth time in a row
Don’t stop until you are so empty you’ve somehow started to feel full again
Think of your heart as bruised, not broken
Swollen, discolored, but infinitely more sensitive
Experiment with how the world feels pressed up against it
Everything heightened
Realize that a violin sounds like someone weeping
And that stars look like pinpricks in the lid of a jar where we are all captured fireflies
Bathe in this new awareness
When even the sunrise begins to remind you of him, force yourself to watch it
Hike to the tallest hill you can find, wrap yourself in a blanket and good company
And watch as the tree branches are painted pink
Forget about the last time you watched the sunrise with him
When he leaves holes in your life, create something new to fill them
Examine your essence
There is more than just blood pulsing through your body
You are dusk, hot pavement in the summer, thunder that shakes the whole house
And you were so many things before you were his