are only cut and polished by other griefs.

Is this an improvement

on grief’s rough state-

its dull battered unremarkable natural design,

to be cut and shaped

polished

to be made beautified?

Can grief be appreciated for what it is,

without considering other shapes and sizes,

and being graded by yourself and others

of what your grief is?

What IS the perfect

most symmetrical

most brilliant

looking grief

to feel

and fit you?

Each different facet of grief

has the potential to

change

your

Life, for better or worse.

Hold it under the sunlight, and

watch its many directions and many angles-

reevaluate and recalculate

the effects of the changing choices.
The same path of a ray is reflected no more than once.
But why not just leave your grief alone

in its rough state

without cutting it up into stages

or dulling your life up even more with numbing medications,

or

being inebriated?

Why feel the need to appear sparkingly attractive, or

smoothed into a princess, heart, pear or oval fancy cut diamond shape?

Does the control of its shape help you feel safe?

Is your chosen shape of grief influenced by the fashion of the hour?

Do you wear it like jewelry designed for optics for everyone to admire

or keep it hidden inside a secret drawer?

How big or how small, wide or narrow, and does the size keep changing?
Does it always look scratched?

Is it a heirloom passed to you? Did you welcome this or not?

Are you afraid of losing it?
Do you wear it as a grieving spouse on your wedding finger?

What are the ideal degrees, heights, depths, diameters, thicknesses, angles,

and grades

of grief you feel,

and don’t?

Do you have more than one piece of grief? When do you wear them and

do not?
Does grief’s sharp corners hurt you and hurt others,

with outreaching shaking hands and chest-to-chest hugs,

wearing necklaces and rings of grief on your neck wrists and fingers.

Is your grieving not as bright and never fiery as more brilliant griefs are,

but has more clarity and a warm glowing luster?
What is the value of the multifaceted and changing grief you have

been given, inherited, lost and found?
What is more important to you-

your grieving’s ability to brightly reflect lights or to stay a certain color always?
Or to be naturally transparently colorless, uncut and unpolished?
Or both, or all of the above? Or none of them at all

because it just doesn’t matter, one way or the other.

©️January 2025 Much Love, Deb Poems

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/local-news/los-angeles-2025-wildfires-mental-health-trauma-grief-1236109271/