their very existence was a burden to me

I hid sometimes in the closet among my own clothes. 

It was no use. The pain would wake me 

Or like a needle it would stitch its way into my dreams. 

Whenever I turned 

I saw its eyes looking out of the eyes of strangers. 

In the night I would walk from room to room slowly 

Like an old person in a convalescent home. 

I would stare at the cornices, the dull arrangements of furniture. 

It all remained the same. 

It was not even a painting. 

It was objects in space without any aura. No meaning attached. 

Their very existence was a burden to me. 

And I would go back to my bed whimpering. 

 

[Ruth Stone {1915-2011} 'Loss', from The Art of Losing: Poems of grief and healing, ed. by Kevin Young]