I Am Not Done Healing

my grandmother once told me, when i was 5 or 6 or at the age where nothing besides playtime really mattered, she told me that healing is not linear. naturally, being 5 or 6, i brushed this off as another one of her lessons i would never understand, and i ran off to play. i never gave it a second thought. now, it’s all i can think about; how teaching my mouth to forget the taste of your name is easier said than done, how it is light years before i can fall asleep to something that is not the memory of you. the child deep within me wants to still brush it off, wants to go off and play; wants to be okay. but i have learned that no matter how hard i try, i cannot march in a straight line to forget your name like the soldiers before me that i cannot turn off the thought of you like flipping on a light switch, that sometimes, i don’t want to.