People say there are five stages of grief

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance

Some people move on more quickly than others, and some never move on at all

I didn’t feel the red marks until I looked in the mirror until I walked into the bathroom and saw what I had done

Denial didn’t go away until I saw my sister’s shocked face quickly morphing into despair

I didn’t hear the glass shatter and the ringing in my ears until I saw what I had done

Like a wave, everything came crashing down

The only person I had to be angry at was myself

Myself for letting everyone around me down

Myself for alienating my friends and family, snapping at and hurting everyone who only wished to help me

Myself for letting this happen in the first place

The bargaining only started after the tears dried up

Bargaining to let everyone else be happy and for me to leave, have them never see my face again

Pleading to any higher power to alleviate the pain and the suffocating feeling of my own loneliness

Begging to be put out of my misery and to be forgotten by time

Bargaining for everything to be okay again

The depression was always there, lurking in the back of my mind, waiting for its chance to strike

A shadow in the room, a rain cloud in a clear sky, a frown in a sea of smiles

Slowly taking over my mind until I looked around one day and realized there was nothing left

An emptiness that could never be filled, a loneliness that could never be sated

Despair was mine and I was despair, a bond unbreakable, morphing and sealing until there was no end or beginning, for I was despair and despair was mine

Acceptance shined on my broken mind soft and soothing, the sunshine that warms the earth after hell rains down

The wounds close themselves, the cuts fading into fine white lines, knitted into my skin echoing down to my bones

But the scars never fade, only the feelings do

For people say there are five stages of grief

Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance

But how do we know that’s true?