Grief Learns to Beg
poetry, mommy issues, and dark romance novels
today’s letter carries the following close to the chest:
a poem picked by y’all’s votes in our last poll
a review of Lights Out
the story I’ll be writing thanks to my reading of Lights Out
Dear Sunflowers,
I find it troublesome to pull myself out of my cave. Winter is gone, and I am stepping in mud and old leaves, trying to convince myself it’s still not time to wake up. Seasons drag me, forcing me to live when the body wants nothing but sleep.
Grief is a weighted blanket, strung all over me, twisting my trembling ankles, and babying the pit in my stomach.
Grief loves me.
And much like all the love I’ve ever learned, she begs.
Grief Learns to Beg
by claudia jean
Threats don’t work,
so we beg.
When we don’t see eye to eye,
you settle to gossip with the sun,
tell her all the awful things I’ve done.
She is waiting.
Grief is wailing.
I ignore the echoes ringing
in my head. Just forget.
Just forget.
Integrity is who you are
when no one is watching.
She sees everything.
I fill my hands with time,
and my skeleton with voices.
Pretend the space between
me and bone-deep is only a scream.
When I see the gravel open
my tender knees, scraping,
I remember grief won’t wait for me.
journal entry 512. black ink on lined paper.
grief unprocessed creates a gnaw, a wound that only knows bleeding. once you’ve exsanguinated the worst of it, you’ll find grief still puddles there. like liquid to fabric, she tugs at the seams, pulling her color into every knot. eventually, the space she takes up gets bigger, and she shrinks. but grief is still there, wailing.
I managed, and it felt like drowning
As many do, I had an emotional Mother’s Day. Shortening the story, I had a meltdown while visiting one of our family matriarchs, but I managed to soothe my grief.
The women in my family are plagued with stitched mouths and bleeding hearts. I was raised with a machete in my boot and sugar on my tongue. We only know how to fold our hands and beg, pray until our wrists fall off.
Then wake up, and do it all over again.
The hallway to the matriarch’s apartment was rotten with the stench of soggy fleshy middles. Reeking of something alive, but writhing. A struggle broke out in my chest. The eggshell walls swallowed me. I paced in half circles, bouncing between the fresh air and the elevator. Against my duty to stay and the overwhelming ache to run. As tears swelled, I rummaged through my oversized purse and pulled out a bottle of honeysuckle oil.
Flowers hit me like bricks.
Inhaling deep, my lungs became tongues, lapping up the petals’ sweat in desperate gulps to replace the smell of dead with something living. This is a coping mechanism I’ve been trying, mostly failing, to implement into my system. For once, it worked!
Smell is the strongest sense of memory recall. As a child, few places felt safe. One was the backyard of my youngest years, lined with cactus and honeysuckle, sporting a thick mother magnolia in the center. When I became a shell, I would suck on the flowers’ ends like a hummingbird, pulling nectar from her pistil. Even now, when I face the barrel, I reach for their little buds.
I spent the visit stuffing oil up my nostrils, trying to stop myself from spiraling. Grandpa’s saggy skin. Crayon wax under my fingers. Fishing line and growling bellies. I’m at the part of the movie I want to skip, but there’s no fast-forwarding this. I think that’s the true power of rewiring my thoughts with my sense of smell, though. I cannot escape, and I cannot resist.
But I can put a different movie in.
Lights Out, Navessa Allen
So, I read the best-selling smut book.
Considering how much of it I write myself, of course I did. However, if you know me on even a miniscule level, you know I have an aversion to a certain social media app. Even if you don’t know me, watching a single reel I’ve ever created would give you all the evidence you’d need to know I am not… a Tiktoker. So, I did hard eye roll when our male love interest, The Faceless Man, was a masked social influencer.
However, after some research, I completely understand the appeal of the masktok trend… but I digress.
It took me two days to read over 300 pages, and I devoured it like I was starving. The sexual encounters were poetic and primal. Flashbacks and trauma were handled gently, naming the hurt without pushing me into a spiral as a reader. Taboo in the most delicious of ways.
While I wasn’t a fan of the TikTok-centric content at first, there is a large section of the book where it isn’t mentioned. To the point where I asked myself… is Josh even still posting thirst traps?! However, Allen wraps it up deviously and erotically, so I wasn’t stunted long.
I was also quite pleased with our female protagonist. Aly is a sassy, no-nonsense trauma nurse who embodies every ounce of brat I’ve ever spilled over. Her witty banter and playful nature are delicately draped in her need to care for everyone around her. Allen depicts the dominant vs submissive interpersonal struggle with such ease, I thought she was describing me. If an author can make me relate to a character so much that I am in their shoes, they deserve all the praise.
Overall, it’s a great read for anyone who likes horror and sex. The adrenaline-inducing, high-stress, slasher tone coupled with the tragic implications of an accident created the perfect cocktail of carnal, visceral ache and deep human connection. Allen introduces, defines, deepens, and strengthens the relationship between Aly and Josh in the most womb-wrecking and beautiful way.
Now, I’m writing a dark romance…
Because when you want to read something, and you can’t find quite the right fit, you gotta just write it yourself. Lights Out was 100% an excellent read, but it wasn’t 100% of everything I would want in a dark romance. So, what do I do about it?
I draft a series of my own like some kind of egomaniac (￣▽￣"")╭
I’m not a TikToker, but I am a gamer. The part of my D.I.D. that craves identity loves MMORPGs for their ability to give you another life. If you read that sentence and thought, “oh, so she plays World of Warcraft,” then you’re right, and that’s exactly where this is going.
There is a server in World of Warcraft with a certain pub where players go to… play, and that is where the inspiration took off. Anyway, I’m still drafting it and doing all the piecemeal stuff, so beyond announcing that I am taking on yet another project (as if a fantasy novel and a BDSM romance were not enough). I’ll post more about it soon!
Thank you for being here, friends!
When you choose to spend your time reading one of my posts, moss grows and stabilizes the forest. If you like my poetry, please consider buying my book. If you don’t like books, consider getting Pike a treat.
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