A poem inspired by my ancestral landwork in Tuam, Co.Galway 9.9.9 Portal

GRIEF.

I make myself
invisible…

Unacknowledged grief
settles in the body
as quiet reservation,
blanketing the soul
in the weight of stories lived
but left untold,
silenced into secrecy through
illusions of common decency—

“Better to make myself invisible…”

But what is hidden
does not dissolve,
it calcifies, restricts resolve,
turning the body into a tomb
of unspoken truths.

The heart becomes
a chamber locked,
the spirit a bird
too weary to fly.

Better to make myself now visible.

To share the stories
and speak the shame.
To wail for sorrow
in sorrow’s name.
To feel until I return whole.

To grieve is to
remember,
and to remember
is to evolve.

— MEHTA MAYAH
2025