To the well-meaning voices, the clock-watchers

the mapmakers of grief, please step back

this is not your damn journey to direct

this grief is mine, not a public spectacle

not a checklist of stages to cross off, but a vast

private wilderness, and I walk through it at my

own pace, in my own time, on my own terms

My Sorrow, my rules, and this is how I mourn

I refuse to shrink my pain to fit your comfort

I refuse to hide my tears to spare your unease

I refuse to move on when my heart still lives in

the before, because this ache is not a debt to

be settled, but a howling testament to a love

that outlives breath, so I refuse your timelines

I will mourn in midnight tears, in furious silence

in the fragile courage of waking up each day

my grief does not want to be rushed, or fixed

but it wants to be felt, to be honoured, and to

be witnessed, and this truth is not small, not simple

it is enormous, so I will remember, I will suffer

however long it takes, however much it breaks me

This pain is not yours to measure, it is not too much

it is not too long, it is the exact size of the love that

had taken from me, so let me be, let me mourn who

I have lost, let me cry without having to translate it

into something teachable, let me feel what I feel

there is no right or wrong way to grieve, only my way

and this grief belongs to me, let that be enough