grief – Amanda Salisbury Books & Art

This was written in the depths of a long, dreadful summer still making itself known, mixed with conversion disorder. It was autobiographical at the time, and I’m glad it’s fiction now.

-AS

A Simpering Mess of Blinded Writer

Originally posted on a 6s community, September 28, 2010 at 9:17am

Have you ever thought you saw something move, but the harder you look, the less you see?

I know the keyboard; I do not need to see it with eyes, for my fingers execute their duties without guidance. But the screen, the page, the focal point – these are divergent, swimming, elusive things, and the harder I look, the less I see.

On the verge of reading a word, it becomes unreadable, foreign; on the verge of making out an idea, it flies on devil’s wings. And so I rub knuckles into eyelids; I blink away mounting confusion; I take a deep breath and try not to panic.

But I want to panic: I want to devolve into a simpering mess of blinded writer; yet, I do not, rather I peck the keys, hope for few mistaken strokes, and go do something manual, something demanding and fruitful the way writing is but that doesn’t remind me that I cannot always make out those little jots of physical or digital ink.

I write about death. A lot. Here, I examined a lover’s existence after the death of the loved. At first, everyone stays around, but everyone leaves eventually.

-AS

I Missed the Rapture

Originally posted on a 6s community on May 23, 2011 at 11:37am

In my despair, I saw no one; they might as well have been ghostly apparitions. The book is filled with names and messages from the dearly loved, the tolerated, and the vicious vicarious grievers alike, so I know they were there. Food laden tables connoted the visit of well wishers who wanted desperately to help and whose help manifested in the forms of Jell-o salads and pulled pork and Hostess treats.

She’s been in the ground for one week now, and the flowers have all either rotted or blown away. The dearly loved, the tolerated, and vicious vicarious grievers have been raptured up to the present world, to live and work and play. And here I spend a thousand years, wanting only to join you in your realm.