Grief by Rose Gubele

Grief

I wrote a note to myself: “Remember to grieve.”
I don black, turn my eyes down.
I need a minute to untangle my past,
mourn the girl who could have been.

Monsters are real:
not embodied evil, stalking silver screens,
not experiments performed by
unethical inventors who drink their own toxins.

Monsters have logic, though not excuse.
They can be kind, if it suits the goal:
manipulation, control, power.
Corrupted by pride, arrogance, greed.

I still remember the monster in the hallway:
no sharp claws, no pointed fangs,
just a boy with a knife,
trying to make his own life better.

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Rose Gubele is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Central Missouri where she teaches courses in rhetoric and writing. She received her Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition at Washington State University. She has previously published poems in Red Ink and Penumbra.