On grief

I just wish
I could express what I feel so it reaches air.
So you can feel it, too.
Words don’t express that much, though.
And I can’t speak clearly enough to make anyone else feel what I feel.
All feeling is transposed by our own experiential lens, our memory
filter, our sensory makeup.
Moviemakers come closest. Or
is it musicians?

Do you see the same blue I see?
How do we know? What if my blue is your red?
We believe we are seeing the same thing
so we’re on the same wavelength. But are we
seeing the same thing?
My filter always tells me I see blue as does yours.
Even scientific instruments can’t distinguish for us
because we see their results through our own innate lenses.

So it could be with feelings.
I listen to a piece of music and want to cry.
You say it makes you sad, too.
I see your tears, just as you see mine.
I touch your tears, they are as warm and moist as mine.
Seems we’re having the same feeling.
But I don’t know what your “sad” feels like.
I only know
what mine feels like.

My "sad" feels icy and spiky sometimes, hot and deep others.
And those words barely scratch the surface.
Sadness feels like the end, the absolute “over” state,
done, finished, nowhere to go, surrender
and collapse.
Sadness is relief.
Sadness is unrequited.
There is nothing but it.
It is high and wide, long and deep, shallow and smoldering, obvious and
lurking, creeping slowly into
consciousness to take over as it has already
overcome all unconsciousness.

I am surprised by sadness. I start to cry
and know that I have been sad for a while.
It’s been rising like yeasted bread,
shaping my mood and reactions before I’m even aware that it’s there.
A little shortness here, a hesitation there. My throat
catches, David flashes by, and there they come
at last, the tears of release.
Release, relief, grief.

Does any of this sound familiar?
Does any of it resonate within your core?
Can you understand how I feel by reading my words?
Is your feeling of grief the same as mine?
Or do we just approximate our empathy based on
trust?

It takes a great leap of faith to voice a feeling. To admit to feeling
something to another is the most vulnerable of states.
For you cannot feel my feeling,
I cannot transmit it to you.
It remains within me, mine,
expressible only by words, movement, facial signs.

I trust
that you will have some knowledge of your own similar feelings,
enough for you to cast yourself somewhat into that state
and fish out a bit of compassion.
You cannot feel my feelings,
yet in re-feeling your own, you may approximate empathy.
You may sense my need by recalling your own.
You may give me the space and time and attention to fully feel my feelings
without envying me that experience.

Maybe those who have a paucity of feeling are envious.
I don’t know if there are people who lack feeling,
more that there are people who lack experiences of fully feeling.
I can’t stop to think of why that would be.
Just know that there are those
whose emotional vocabulary
is small
as yet.