Helena Fox > Quotes

“GRIEF FEELS LIKE THIS:
an okay day and a good day and an okay day
then a bad.
Bad that follow and empties you.
Bad like a sinkhole.

It feels like
an unrelenting urge to lay your head down on the table, wherever you are, whomever you are with.

It feels like
a night of vivid dreams, and when you wake, all day you hold one dream close
because in it
everything was back to how it once was.

It feels like
you've fallen overboard.
You are swimming to get back, but the boat moves steadily away. You can see the lights; you can hear the laughter and music on the decks.
You try to follow. The boat moves away.

It feels like
missing.
You miss her. You miss him. You miss belonging. You miss the bench by the fence. You miss the walk from the lockers. You miss the talks by the pool, in the hammock, at night, on the phone, the screen winking blue light. You miss the stories on the bed, by the window, beside the desk, on the dunes. You miss his voice. You miss her smile.
You miss and miss and miss and miss.
And all you want to do is walk into a forest and cover yourself with leaves.”
― Helena Fox

“Grief feels like this: an okay day and a good day and an okay day
then a bad.
Bad that follows you and empties you.
Bad like a sinkhole.”
― Helena Fox

“GRIEF FEELS LIKE THIS:
an okay day and a good day and an okay day
ten a bad.
Bad that follow and empties you.
Bad like a sinkhole.

It feels like
an unrelenting urge to lay your head down on the table, wherever you are, whomever you are with.

It feels like
a night of vivid dreams, and when you wake, all day you hold one dream close
because in it
everything was back to how it once was.

It feels like
you've fallen overboard.
You are swimming to get back, but the boat moves steadily away. You can see the lights; you can hear the laughter and music on the decks.
You try to follow. The boat moves away.

It feels like
missing.
You miss her. You miss him. You miss belonging. You miss the bench by the fence. You miss the walk from the lockers. You miss the talks by the pool, in the hammock, at night, on the phone, the screen winking blue light. You miss the stories on the bed, by the window, beside the desk, on the dunes. You miss his voice. You miss her smile.
You miss and miss and miss and miss.
And all you want to do is walk into a forest and cover yourself with leaves.”
― Helena Fox

“Sylvia takes me in, my fidgety hands, my fidgety face, my fidgety heart in its cage. “Hmmm,” she says. “But now you are here. So you must be a little bit okay.” “Yeah,” I say. I lean into Sylvia’s hope, her ancient positivity. I guess I am a little bit okay? I’m here, after all.”
― Helena Fox

“There's never enough time. Actually, there's too much and too little, in unequal parts. More than enough time passing but not enough of the time passed. Right?”
― Helena Fox

“A heart is a mystery and not a mystery. It hides under ribs, pumping blood. You can pull it out, hold it in your hand. Squeeze. It wants what it wants. It can be made of gold, glass, stone. It can stop anytime.”
― Helena Fox

“Am I better? Can you be better when you're still sad—long patches of sad swooping in at night when there aren't any sounds to cover it? Are you better when you still feel blank, fog rising inside you, great empty spaces like those moors people walk on in British films? Are you better when, as you're going through the motions—talking, laughing, listening, walking the dog, helping Mum with dinner—at the same time there's this lost feeling walking beside you, so you can touch it, like a tongue on a tooth?”
― Helena Fox

“Life is terrible and beautiful isn’t it? It’s the best/worst at the exact same time, all possibilities at once.
I guess it’s whatever it is when you observe it. And a second later, it’s something else.
Now it's something else again.
Now it's something else.”
― Helena Fox, Lo que se siente al flotar / How It Feels to Float