One Way Call with Grief

A vulnerable look at the healing process and finding words for the things we’ve lost.

I decided to allow myself to be even more vulnerable with you all by actually posting a poem I created earlier today in my Creative Expressions group. Mind you, I am not following any professional rules or rhetoric. It may rhyme, it may not. It is far from perfect, and honestly, posting this is an exposure for me. I’m very protective of my creativity and usually won’t ever show it unless I believe it’s “good enough.” So, without further ado, here it is:

Here I sit in creative expressions group
Wondering if I’ll have enough to say
Yet when I read the prompt that was posted
My thoughts refuse to go away

It’s called a wind phone
A way to speak words left unsaid
So very interesting
Used as a one-way call to the dead

Old rotary phones placed randomly in nature
It can become a peaceful place to heal
One more chance to say I love you
Or just however you truly feel

We always talk about depression
Something I know all too much
However, we barely research grief
One which can be similar and such

I often wonder, what came first for me
Depression or grief
For a long time I thought it didn’t matter
Yet both have been a time thief

All these years felt deeply
Lost to illness and pain
Now I sit with depression
And try not to complain

I’ve begun the healing process
Having to say things to young me
I wonder if the wind phone
Would help me just be

Perhaps it could be grief underlying
Finding my way from anger to hope
Accepting of a life I never had
Would be a healthier way to cope

A simple phone, unplugged
To help process our emotions
Or to say your final goodbyes
The wind phone, quite the notion

If you’d like to learn more about the Wind Phone, you can find more information here: Smithsonian Magazine Article