‘Givers Are Grievers’

Jennifer McKeen Rodrigues lives on the sacred Powhatan land of Fairfax, VA. She is trained as a certified yoga therapist & trauma informed yoga teacher, is a queer & neurodivergent military spouse, & mom. Her poetry & photography have been featured in Passengers, Susurrus, FERAL, The Jelly Bucket, Mid-Atlantic Review, Paper Dragon, & several military anthologies. Her photography has been nominated for Best of the Net. Find her on Insta @gmoneyfunklove.

Givers Are Grievers

Givers are invisible,

always there,

bleeding themselves dry

in silence.

Their blood flows over stones,

soaking into the ground

stained with the blood of those before,

pooling into lakes

and flowing into rivers.

Their red, their color, their lives-

all waved, poured out of them in quiet blooms,

keeps the world a kinder place.

A place closer to that which they dream of.

They will bleed until there is nothing left to bleed 

for the chance of a better world.

And they will mourn, for their life’s essence will die

in those they’ve loved and lost.

The mourning is loud, a supernova in a quiet part of space

mostly ignored.

Mourning doves still defiantly chirp.

The givers take their hope and grief and offer it to the world 

over and over–

a tragic bouquet,

for givers are grievers.

Aubrey Lynch is a disabled Pennsylvanian-born writer living in Florida. She graduated from Cedar Crest College in May, 2023. Her poem, "First Kiss," was recently published in the 2025 edition of "The Central Dissent".