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How I Carve My Way Out of This Box of Grief?
Coping with loss in my darkest, most disregulated moments.
After losing my mom, Marleen, I never got the chance to grieve. I was swept away to a new state with a family that was supposedly mine, but I didn’t know them.
I wasn’t allowed to talk about her, keep her picture up, or even mention her name. No one tried to keep her memory alive. I was just expected to fit in, so I did. I tried my hardest to just be part of this family, this life that was built with little care for my own.
It broke me.
They never gave me space to grieve—my loss made everyone, especially my stepmother of the time, uncomfortable.
25 years later, that grief has transformed into this giant cardboard box. The kind where it rubs against your skin, causing you to shudder because it’s so void of moisture.
This brown corrugated box closes in on me, pressing the flaps down without my consent, edges digging into my flesh, stuffing my mouth.
There is barely a warning at all.
