What is there to say, really?
this week, a poem.
Dear fam,
Once a week, I try to send a surprise post — a poem, or a Q&A with a creative person, or a deep-dive on a lesser explored symptom of ADHD, or some other thing I think you’ll find engaging and valuable.
The poems come least frequently. This is mostly because poems are, in my opinion, the form of writing most worthy of reverence. To distill a human experience into a perfect few words is just… well, pretty impossible. I don’t really think I’m capable of such divinity, if I’m honest.
I still write poems, though. And part of my personal journey is accepting that, although my writing will likely never be even an arm’s-length away from perfect, it is still valuable and worthwhile. Indeed, the act of sharing is a worthwhile endeavor — it is this welcoming of others into our own little silos that creates the wonderfully messy human experience.
So. Now that we’re done with the caveats.
I originally wrote this poem seven years ago, in the weeks following my mother-in-law’s passing. At the time, the poem was trying to express a specific ache and absence of words, but as I revisited it this week it seemed to express something very real I see now in my day-to-day. A sort of inability to express the bewildered fear and grief that follows so many of us around. Even though this is a poem from a specific time and place, it felt resonant to me.
I changed a lot of words this time around. Tried to get even closer to the beating heart of the poem. Tried to tune into whatever radio message the universe (God?) is sending when I’m writing. Tried to ask good questions about what should be and what shouldn’t be and how it all should come together. Tried to answer them.
Sending you this with love, and compassion, and strength to sustain us all through the hard days that have been — and the hard days yet to come.
Yours in messiness,
Mikhal
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