The winner takes it all
But I bleed, I bleed over everything
Grief visits you on a Tuesday night, by the roadside waiting for the next batch of akara, rain pelting your face as you question why you’re even standing here, you want to leave but you dont, your body refuses it, so you stay, you listen, but you dont hear anything apart from the sizzling oil, the rain, and the little generator toiling away in it. You seem paused in the moment as you wonder if this is “one of those days” and if you’re ready for it. You don’t want to be here. God! You don’t want to be here.
Grief hides in the tired corners of your eyelids as you go about your daily wares, a look you try to balance with a smile, a sign to be left alone, as you slowly wade through its murky waters, pushing slowly until you break free—can you break free?—. It’s in the “sorry” that breaks you, the one you never asked for, the one that stings like salt to the wound, you didn’t ask to feel this way. Where do you fit the “sorry” in the routine you’ve built? Why does it crush you under its weight?
A wound never heals if you keep touching it
But I bleed, I bleed over everything, I try to clean, but it’s everywhere, it trails after me, it doesn’t wash off, it won’t wash off, but everyone’s pointing out a hand to shake, how do I dare take it for fear that I bleed on them too, how do I stop touching the wound if it keeps hurting, how do I stop from bleeding apart from holding it shut with my hands, but I bleed on these hands too, because the wound grows and there’s only so much hands I’ve got. Will I ever stop bleeding?
