Anatomy of Aftermath

The day I learned how much one hour can dismiss.

                   The Scorch

                   May 18, 2022

I woke up like it was any other day —

Coffee going cold before I found my way

To drinking it, the radio turned down low.

I had no way of knowing what I know

Now: that by evening, none of it would hold.

The world I trusted became a world called old,

And a new one started before I said its name.

That's how it happens. It doesn't ask. It came.

I didn't choose the eighteenth of May.

It chose the hour, chose exactly how to stay

Lodged in me the way a date sometimes will,

Marking time as before, and after. Still.

I keep it not because I want the pain,

But because forgetting feels like lying again.

Some days deserve to be named, even hard ones, even this —

The day I learned how much one hour can dismiss.

          The Sudden Gravity

One minute I was standing, steady, sure.

The next, my knees forgot what knees are for.

Nobody tells you shock arrives so fast —

Not a slow unraveling, just a blast.

My hands were shaking before I knew why.

My body understood before my mind could try

To catch up, to explain what just occurred.

Some things you feel before you have the word.

I didn't drift down slow, like falling leaves.

I dropped, the way a person drops when grief

Arrives too big for any kind of grace.

That's the gravity of losing something in its place.

Nobody warns you it can hit this hard,

This fast, this heavy, leaving you scarred

Before you've even had the time to brace.

That's what sudden feels like. No warning. No space.

         Stark Horizon

I looked outside and everything was gone —

Not slowly missing, just erased by dawn.

The trees I used to know by heart weren't there.

Just flat, grey ground, and too much open air.

I kept expecting shapes to reappear,

The way you keep on setting one more chair

For someone who isn't coming back tonight.

But the horizon stayed that empty, stayed that white.

Nothing to block the wind. Nothing to hide behind.

Just me, standing there, trying to find

One reason not to feel as small as I did then,

Alone in a landscape leveled flat again.

But empty ground is still ground you can walk.

I learned that standing there, too tired to talk,

Too tired to do anything but simply stay.

Sometimes surviving looks exactly that plain.

         The Language of Fracture

I tried to tell someone what had happened.

The words came out all wrong, scattered, flattened.

"I'm fine" felt like a lie I told too fast.

"I'm not" felt like a truth too big to ask

Anyone to hold for very long.

So I said nothing. Let the silence be the song

I couldn't sing in any other way.

Some days, quiet is the only thing to say.

I know that silence worries people who love you.

I know they want the words, want something true

And spoken plainly, something they can hold.

But some breaks don't translate. Some breaks stay untold

Until they're ready, sitting in your chest.

I'm not being difficult. I'm not trying to protest

On purpose. I just don't have the words yet, still.

Give it time. The language comes back. It will.

                   The Embers

         The Weight of Gray

I answering texts for a week or two.

Not because I didn't care, but because I couldn't do

The version of myself that sounds okay.

Gray doesn't shout. It just sits there all day,

Making simple things feel impossibly far —

Getting dressed, driving the car,

Answering "how are you" without a lie.

I was so tired, and I didn't know why

Exhaustion could feel this heavy, not just sleepy,

Like something invisible had been loaded already

Onto shoulders that never agreed to the weight.

Nobody tells you grief moves like slow freight,

Arriving whether you're ready or not.

I got through those weeks the only way I thought

I could — one small hour, and then the next.

Unimpressive. Plain. But it's still the whole text

Of survival, some days: just staying, still here.

Nobody claps for that. I showed up anyway, all that year.

                   A Sieve for Memory

I went through old photos, deciding what to keep.

Some made me smile. Some made me want to weep

And put the phone down, walk away instead.

Not every memory needs to be re-read.

I kept the ones that still felt warm to hold,

The ordinary ones — nothing dramatic, nothing bold.

Just small moments, quiet, easy, true.

Those are the ones that carried something through

The wreckage of everything else that didn't survive.

I'm learning grief doesn't mean every memory has to arrive

Wrapped in pain. Some just get to be plain and good.

I sift through what's left the best way that I could,

Keeping what helps, releasing what only hurts.

That's not forgetting. That's just learning what works

To carry forward, and what to set back down.

Memory's a sieve. I'm still learning how it's found.

                   Negative Space

Some days I don't talk about what happened at all.

The quiet isn't empty. It's just how I recall

Without having to perform the story out loud.

Silence can hold you. It doesn't need a crowd.

                   Skeletal Sparks

I laughed at something small, and it caught me off guard.

Not because it wasn't funny, but because laughing felt hard

To imagine, back when everything hurt.

That laugh was the first sign something wasn't inert

Inside me anymore. Just a flicker, barely there,

Small enough that I almost missed it, unaware

I'd been waiting for permission to feel light again.

Nobody tells you healing starts this plain —

Not a breakthrough. Just a laugh you didn't force.

Just a morning where getting up wasn't such a chore.

I started collecting these small, ordinary sparks,

Proof that something in me still wanted to arc

Back toward warm. I didn't trust it yet.

But I let it happen anyway. I didn't forget

How good it felt, that flicker, faint and small.

Sometimes that's the whole beginning. That's all.

Act III: The Rebuild

         The Scaffold

I made my bed one morning, just because.

It wasn't healing. It didn't fix what was.

But it was something — one small, chosen act

That said I'm still here, still choosing to react

Instead of just enduring. I built my days

Out of small tasks, unremarkable ways

Of proving to myself I hadn't stopped.

Nobody sees a scaffold and thinks it's the top

Of anything. It's ugly. It's just support.

But support is what you need when you're the sort

Of tired that makes simple things feel far.

I built mine slow. I didn't know how strong scaffolds are

Until I needed one, and built it plank by plank —

Nothing pretty, nothing to thank

Except myself, for showing up again,

One ordinary choice, and then again, and then.

         Quiet Reconstruction

I noticed one day I'd stopped bracing at doors,

Stopped expecting bad news before it's yours

To even hear. That's when I understood

Something in me had quietly turned for good.

Nobody announces reconstruction with noise.

It doesn't feel like healing. It's not poised

Or dramatic. It's just Tuesday, and you're fine.

It's realizing you slept through the night, one more time

Than you thought you would. It's laughing without the flinch

Of guilt behind it. It's closing, inch by inch,

The gap between who you were and who's still here.

I didn't notice healing happening. It just appeared

One ordinary day, the way most real things do —

Quiet, unannounced, and completely true.

         What the Ash Forgives

I used to be so angry I couldn't sleep,

Replaying everything, unable to keep

The anger from eating every quiet hour.

Bitterness felt like the only power

I had left. But it was heavy to carry,

And one day I realized I didn't want to marry

My whole life to something that already happened.

So I let it go — not because I was pretending

It didn't matter, but because holding on

Was costing me every single dawn

I had left to live. Forgiveness isn't saying it was fine.

It's just refusing to let old fire keep drawing the line

Around who I get to be now.

That's what the ash forgives, somehow —

Not the flame itself, just my own grip

On carrying a weight I finally learned to let slip.

         Un-shakeable Form

I used to think strength meant nothing ever shook you.

Now I know strength means getting back up, and you

Do it again, plain and unremarkable, each time

Life knocks you down without asking, without rhyme

Or reason. I'm not unbreakable. I broke.

But I didn't stay there. That's the truth I spoke

To myself on the hardest, most ordinary days:

Getting up counts, even in the smallest ways.

I'm not the same person the fire found.

I'm someone steadier, someone who found ground

Again, slowly, without any fanfare or applause.

Just showed up, kept showing up, simply because

That's what surviving actually looks like —

Not dramatic. Not cinematic. Just the quiet like

Of choosing, every day, to stand instead of fall.

That's the u-nshakeable part. That's really all.