A jar of black smoke and fireflies.

I still think about you.

It's been a while. And I've managed to heal my wounds massively. My wings are not as featherless as they were once we parted. When we had our head in the clouds, and thought we had all figured out.

And how we were always thinking of flying away, to escape everything we frayed.

Today I remembered of when I got dropped a light of hope and wisdom. Of how to break free from my own chains after we left each other follow their own course. I have learned how to say goodbye without enduring the degree of pain that an obsessive time and memory-keeping owl can experience. Every goodbye is a premise of an announced death.

And almost a year ago, the following words were laid on top of me:

"Grieving is the culmination of love."

I remember very vividly, as many things, of the first time I heard those words reverberate through my skull. How I spent a whole morning crying because of all the good that sentence had caused. 

And so suddenly.

And so violently. 

As if the owner of my birdcage had, quite dramatically, decided that it was time to let me free. And give me wisdom while they did.

And so vividly I took flight.

And so thankful I did leave.

As if someone had been waiting for me all along. To break out and meet them again.

I understood that day, after shedding tears and blood. After having anger inside of my bones, and crippling sadness inside of my heart; how to bear the weight of something so vital and transcendent such as Grief.  

Grief is this pot of black smoke with little fireflies inside. A mix of emptiness and memories, and love, that we fear touching or opening. We desire to break the fireflies free, but we fear they will leave us with only the smoke behind. 

What I understood that day, is that they never do, leave. Because it is love itself that is left behind. 

"To grieve profoundly, is to have loved fully."

Don't you see? How glowing and free? 

As we head towards inevitable demise, we still choose to love. Every time. We always choose to love despite knowing the pain that precedes such a blissful commitment. It was once so unbearably illogical, yet now so truthful and loyal to human nature.  

When grief hits, everything becomes dark and uncharted. Like an early morning mist that never clears out fully, and hugs you for the rest of the day until the stars try to glance at you from above. But here's it to you, my fearful but lovely friend:

"Open your heart to the world as you have done to me, and you'll only find reasons to keep living in it."

I'll see you again one day. This life or the next. I'll be patiently but excitedly waiting for you to be able to see me fly again as I did before. Healthy, and happy, and free.

So vividly, can you see?

So glowingly, they flee. 

The fireflies are free.

And today I still found myself thinking about you. 

I love you. I always will.

-the owl;