my heart
dresses in
black lace
when I slide beads slowly
through my practiced hands
their surfaces warm
worn smooth
against calloused
fingertips
it is the tender tissue
of my throat
that stings
as I murmur
their names
one by one
in order of loss
head bowed
in the candlelight
or I must return
to the beginning
start again
the ritual must be
performed perfectly
at the alter
of my dead
© 2018 Christine Elizabeth Ray – All Rights Reserved
Brave & Reckless 
You’ve chosen the words with such care. They’re infused with pathos and quiet passion.
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I have no beads and no altar, but that matters not. The ritual has no set time or place or form, and that is no matter too. The ritual is present, engraved in the pavement of paths shared for long or short. The ritual has no beginning nor end, and only lengthens with each passing. Sleep well my dead, and know, if there is knowing there, the peace that so eluded some of you in life.
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Reblogged this on cabbagesandkings524 and commented:
Christine Ray – A necessary ritual
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These rituals for mourning, were only ways, that the living had, of reminding ourselves, that those who died, were once, alive, as we currently are…
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I love this image: my heart dresses in black lace.
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Reblogged this on A Global Divergent Literary Collective.
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