My Grief is a Forest

My grief is a forest.

"I was
suffering from the kind of loneliness
that never goes away."
The restless leg syndrome of existence.
That sepia filter soaking
every image in the gallery,
Flavoring every taste of existence with mind-
numbing anxiety.
The hummingbird heartbeat persists.
The banality of everything that is, was, will be.
The paranoia of invisible parasites probing the
outer edges of my existence.
Why can’t my mouth form vowels around what kind of sickness this is?
The roots of my sorrow rest deep.
Still waters too run deep.
So do the fruiting plants of my various grievances,
sapping sweet drip from the tarpits of my aching heart.
I cannot cut flowers and then call myself a forest.
Have you ever cried so hard
that your body betrayed your being?
Wracked with sobs, that gutted-to-the-core raw
throat choke, the lightning strike-splintered wood
smoking larynx, scorched earth soul.
I am graced with grief less and less every so often,
but when she arrives she settles in like an old tea friend
and I am forced to entertain her.