It didn't knock.
It didn't wait to be invited.
It just came in,
sat down
in the middle of everything.
At first, I resisted.
Tried to move it,
manage it,
make it smaller.
But grief doesn't shrink
because we ignore it.
It expands
until we sit beside it.
So I opened a window.
Let it breathe.
Gave it a name
and stopped asking
how long it would stay.
It's not here to break me.
Just to remind me
what mattered
enough to lose.