The In-Between

The poem captures the feeling of being caught in a state of grief, feeling like the world will stop for you and allow you to dwell on the experience for as long as you need, alone in the dark and healing, until you emerge and discover that life has been going on without you. It's about the fear of not being able to be normal again, of feeling like the loss is a constant, obvious stain on your being, but then realizing that the period of grief you've experienced and the death behind it is a part of your new normal. Everything you're afraid of will pass in good time: there is a way back to normalcy after losing a loved one. You can run from the way grief impacts your life, you can get caught in it, and you can return to normal.

how do you know that it is time to let go?

when the flowers begin to bloom again?

when the world comes back to life?

you’ve sealed yourself so far into this

neverending hibernation

so sick of the way the world reacts around you and

so desperate to find something to wake you up again

—or push you down forever.

how do you know that it is time to let go?

when you can no longer stand the way the darkness wraps around you?

when you can no longer bear to cry to the same sad songs,

to the same howling wind

to the same pale moon

stuck on this cyclical, melancholy night forever

—but you don’t have to be.

how do you know that it is time to let go?

emerge from your cave

and notice,

the world has moved on without you.

the flowers have come and gone,

the world has rebirthed and died,

the sick, feeble moon has gone through its phases

again and again and again and again

and all you’ve done is...

nothing

stops for anybody, there is no way to control your world

how do you know that it is time to let go?

when you miss the way it was more than the way it is

when you crave to be who you were because you hate who you are.

you don’t want to be stuck here,

you can’t live your life in this darkness forever,

but you can’t return to the way things were before, either.

so you don’t.

it is slow, at first

returning to the constant noise and ruckus of the world.

(this is nothing like you imagined it would be)

it is hard, at first

remembering how to be yourself.

(this is everything you were afraid of)

but it is okay:

you are not the first,

nor will you be the last,

to find yourself stuck in that place where you lose sight of it all.

you are not the first,

nor will you be the last,

to come out of it on the other side.

how do you know that it is time to let go?

there is no perfect way to tell

when you’re ready to return

and it’s okay to be afraid and

unsure

insecure

regretful of how soon you left that comforting in-between

but time will take care of that, too.

when it is time to let go,

you don’t have to let go forever,

you just have to let go long enough

to see yourself fly.