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the woman wanted to go back and begin those moments again, the fierce-toothed, snappy ones, when she allowed words to climb out of her mouth completely untethered to anything but her own ego, and such a thing that ego, such a hurting, you-can’t-prove-me-wrong thing that quakes in her running-away shoes whilst spitting out fire—still… deep inside, fear lives, and also, the urgency to look away from the moment where she knows she will be alone.
the fear of this has made her mouth a weeping war-machine.
regret dwells heavy in her limbs and she spreads it thickly onto her bread, swallows it down with her morning tea, but life—this tender schoolhouse, does not allow for frivolous luxuries like return tickets, and time-travel.
to return to the place where a thing was said, was allowed to run rampant, a virus of words that just keeps on living despite plasters and poultices and winged apologies.
this is a hard lesson.
the only way through it is to receive its shape with the heart-door ajar, just as it arrives, to pick up this new knowledge, this seventy-times-seven grace, to carry it homeward in her hands.
to lay it down at the end.
isn’t it all just part of grief?
—to never be able to return to a moment, all the soft armoured bodies in the same room together.
still, the woman was teaching herself how to do it differently.
kindness is surely the greatest thing to plant in the watery bed next to the tongue.
it blooms.
it blooms.
loss, is a sure teacher to the one who allows herself to listen to its wisdom.

© Liezel Graham 2025

{photograph: mary and her babe, a favourite spot in the graveyard where we often walk}

words from my journal.

perhaps from the jumble of words, something might leap into your arms.

liezel

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