The Grammar of Grief

She wept in a rhythm I could not translate—
tears falling soft and steady, like a sky
that refuses to close.

I did not know her words,
not even one—
and still, I could tell
something inside her
was breaking open.

Her language was not mine,
and mine was not hers.
So I set down the need
to explain,
to fix,
to make sense of the storm.

And yet—
my arms opened.

I cannot say why.

And she came closer,
resting her trembling face
against my chest
as if she had always known
this was a place
she could fall.

I held her—
heart to heart—
and somewhere in the quiet
between her sorrow and my breath,
something shifted.

A soft apology
I did not know I carried
rose within me.

A heaviness followed—
echoes of loss,
the sharp edge of loneliness,
a shadow of betrayal
I could suddenly feel
without ever living.

As her sobs slowed,
as her heartbeat steadied,
my own eyes filled—
tears arriving
like rain from a clear sky,
unannounced,
unexplained.

She lifted her face.

Her eyes were calm now—
dry, even—
while mine overflowed.

No words passed between us,
yet something had been given,
something received.

Is this what it means
to share a burden?
For hearts to meet
and trade both sorrow and light
without ever speaking?

I do not know.

But I remember this—
the quiet joy in her eyes
when she looked at me,

and how, somehow,
that joy
found its way back
into my own.