what always runs but never walks often murmurs

Hitting the wall of pain, there to crush me unless I get through it The overpowering nausea when the grief is the strongest

Needing people, but wanting them to leave me alone Your pallid face, the bullet hole on your neck they didn’t mean to show meĪ row of body bags, and no way for me to know which one is youĪnger at myself, for biting back the pain Sometimes the murmurs are so loud, they hover and buzz and swarm and sting me, and I can barely hear anything above the din The joy I look for and often find, but that doesn’t drown out the murmurings The wanting you back, the scream, hey, that was mine The strength and resilience that grow, but then betray me, because I would like to have the muscles to run away That no matter how much attention I give you now, it will never be enoughĪny new sorrow that adds cumulative weight, even more straw on a pile of straw Knowing how close the worlds are to each otherĪnd how little it takes to go from one to the next The tears that are off in some foreign place, far away, because I am so far from myself The swallowed “no” when I let kids do something, go someplace that scares me The number of the officer, one call to whom will bring a brother home from combat, for good Sometimes the murmurings hover and buzz and swarmĪ debt of gratitude, your grandmother not faulting me for raising you here The joy I look for and often find, accompanied by the murmurings

The mitzvot I don’t do, in pain or in anger Even the letters that would fly in the air, silenced

What always runs but never walks often murmurs