Grief sometime in January Grief sometime in January Grief sometime in January

By Amalia McLaughlin

Above me, a street lamp flickers in the rain. I turn down the radio and my mother tells me on speakerphone that it’s not a cyst; her mother has cancer. Somehow I thought she’d live forever but at the stop sign, I am reminded of the finitude of life. On and off and on and off. The wet pavement glistens as the street lamp disrupts the darkness. At the red light, there’s a silent tear for every drop on the windshield as my sister shoves hollow words of comfort with a quivering voice I do not know who I am when grief so premature so primal explodes from my chest as I scream at my key stuck in that ugly turquoise door. I am grieving for her. and for the piece of me that didn’t know this finitude this awakening of impermanence of that foggy street with a fractured flickering lamp.

DESIGN BY ANASTASIA GLASS, ART BY MARIA CAZZATO