grief demands to be known, which is why the poets and songwriters teach us only of grief. it has been described as a knife slicing through air so thick with silence, it has been described as a permeating presence, seeking out every possible crevice to press itself into relentlessly. it is merciful, a stick smashed against rocks for water to gush from. it is anger’s greatest defeater. it breaks it down, breaks everything down. grief has been described to me in swathes of envy and jealousy because it covets and it cannot have, ever ever ever. it has been described as a car crash, screaming metal crumpled into soft bleeding flesh. grief has come to me as a black kitten curled into the crook of my arm, feeding hungrily from the tips of my grime-coated fingers. grief has come to me as a hound in a rainstorm. grief has come to me as a hound leaving in a rainstorm. grief has woken me up and guided me to sun-soaked, loss-tinged day after day. grief comes ever closer with each line, each sentence, and we must meet it when it comes. there is no other way. when it calls you must answer. grief calls us to contend with the cornerstone of being alive. i will be ready. there is no other way.