grief tastes like soup

broth & abandonment are synonymous

you take a sip too soon,

it burns your tongue,

but your heart is still speaking.

maybe i wanted the burn.

maybe i even yearned for it — because it felt like permission.

permission to grieve, to suffer, to stay, to pause.

and maybe i swallowed fire because it was better than silence.

i had been quiet for so long that I let it happen to me.

so even if i scorched everything while speaking,

at least i spoke.

now it simmers in the kitchen while i try to sleep.

and it’s funny, how something as simple as soup can feel like a ghost.

it bubbles softly, but it echoes like grief.

i leave the lights off. i pretend i don’t hear it.

but it knows i’m awake.

it knows i’m still carrying everything i said and everything i didn’t.

and maybe that’s what grief does —

it stays on the stove, low flame,

never enough to boil over, never enough to cool down.

the table still saves your place — even when i don’t.

i clear everything else, but not that.

maybe out of habit. maybe guilt.

maybe because grief is better behaved when it has somewhere to sit.

and some days, i almost say your name before passing the salt.

now i like my soup cold.

there’s something honest about it.

no heat, no steam, no pretending.

just what it is — heavy, quiet, and exactly how i left it.

grief, served the way i can finally swallow it.