Grief has a way of showing up right when the world is shouting about holiday cheer. Every neon display tells you to be merry. Every commercial insists that joy is mandatory. It hits harder when your heart is carrying loss. This poem confronts that tension directly. It’s the kind where love and pain sit in the same room. You find yourself trying to breathe through both. Readers who have carried a loss through the holiday season will recognize that raw pull. Those who have tried to balance healing with real life will also feel it. In a world that doesn’t slow down, this piece reminds you that grief doesn’t follow the calendar. It follows the heart, step by step, memory by memory.
“Happy fucking holiday.”
An original poem by: Axton N.O. Mitchell
I’m depressed,
and my life isn’t even a mess
compared to what it used to be.
Recently, I learned:
grief isn’t something
medication will ever ease.
You
have
to
let
it
drop you to your knees.
The pills really do work
for what they’re worth.
But I still have to get used
to the loss of you.
And now your dog is gone too.
She held so many memories
of you:
the way you put her in your purse,
the way you two were attached.
The way she looked
at me
like she knew
she’d be with you.
Letting
go
has never come easy to me.
I don’t think
I’ll ever fully heal
the loss of
you.
Maybe I can’t…
If it’s true
medicine for depression
can’t touch
what grief has caused.
Now what will
carry me
through
the loss of
you?
This one came out of the type of day when everything felt too close. I kept thinking about how healing never looks like what people promise. Folks hand out easy lines. They say time heals everything, or that pills fix the hurt. However, they never sit with what grief really does. Losing someone shifts the ground under you, and sometimes the memories that stay behind hit just as hard. Even the dog carried pieces of that story. Writing this was my way to accept the truth. Medicine can soften the edges, but it can’t erase the shape of a loss. It felt important to say it out loud. If someone out there needs that same permission to feel what they feel, I hope this poem offers them comfort. This poem can give them space to breathe.
Grief asks us to carry the weight of love long after someone is gone. It shows up in the soft places, the unexpected reminders, the empty corners where laughter used to live. This poem is part of a larger journey through healing and memory. It explores the fragile work of moving forward even when the heart refuses to forget. If this piece met you where you are today, stay with that feeling. Let it be a reminder that your grief is real, and your healing is real. You don’t have to rush toward some polished version of recovery. You’re allowed to take it slow. You’re allowed to remember. You’re allowed to feel all of it… especially on the days when the world tells you to smile.
Poeaxtrys Links. Poetizer. A poem.
