On the days
when I forget
to eat anything
but my
weed laced oatmeal,
sometimes I still have
Grief Pickles.
When my depression
or my disordered eating
grabs a hold of me
and prevents me from moving,
I can lift a Grief Pickle
to my mouth,
the temptation
to feel again
too great.
In a moment,
the tiny sweet gherkins
yield to my teeth,
meaty matter crumbling
into itself
along the structures
that created it,
and I remember
my Grandma.
I remember
every Saturday night
when she would
consider it
something special
to break out
a frozen pizza
and some
potato chips
and some
tiny sweet gherkins.
Not a balanced meal,
nothing like her
homemade roasts
or goulash
but she thought
it was special
(probably because
it took less work),
so I thought
it was special.
I bite into a
Grief Pickle and
I remember
my Grandma,
who kept the house
at 76 degrees
for two years
after my
Grandpa died,
never thinking
that she could
change it to
what she liked.
I remember
my Grandma,
who played
strategy games
as if she didn’t
quite fully
understand
everything
she could do
to screw
other people over,
until the time came
that she didn’t quite
understand
strategy games
that deeply at all,
not for the benefit
of others
or herself.
I remember
my Grandma,
who would
subtly rib
on my weight
by suggesting
things like,
“perhaps you
should check
the weight limit
on the chair.”
I remember
my Grandma,
complicated,
human,
trapped
just the same
in a society
and a family
with such profound
generational trauma
that we don’t
speak of emotions
much less feel them.
I remember
my Grandma
on the hospital bed,
looking lost and tiny,
a wrinkled fetus
abandoned in the
slow gradual breakdown
of the prison
that holds
our consciousness.
I remember
my Grandma’s
hand, small
and soft and spotted.
I take another bite.
Rexicorn 