New Guidelines for Grieving
Christina Heatherton | October 3, 2025
Don’t be a burden
Don’t you cry with your mouth open and your heart spilling out making it everyone’s problem
just cause you’re sad
Don’t complain if you’re here as a courtesy – on visa scholarship or asylum
whether you’re a dreamer or just somebody’s dream
Don’t complain
Maybe try showing a little less attitude and a little more gratitude? Hm?
The country is at half-mast for all the people who want you dead
Deal with it
You did not win the right to express your feelings
or if you did, no one cares now
So, don’t flinch if a masked man grabs you
Don’t yelp if you’re slammed to the ground
If you’re trapped in a stranger’s car
don’t make a big deal or try the doors
They are locked
Whatever is coming
you probably deserve
And don’t react if you see the walls crumble
Don’t wince if glass shatters on your face
There’s no point running to safety or refuge
You may feel free to sit still and die quietly
Whatever you do, don’t go filming and posting about it
It’s inconvenient
Mistakes are sometimes made in wartime
We are at war and
You are the mistake
Now, no one’s saying you can’t grieve
You may mourn in a manner consistent with the values of the institution
*and those values are updated regularly with the Dow and posted to the S&P 500
You might learn to modulate your emotions to the market’s rhythms
In this way you may even find peace
But you must also learn respect
If the dominant people
in the dominant country practicing
the dominant culture and the dominant religion speaking
the dominant language trading in
the dominant currency dominating
the global financial system backed by
the dominant military and producing
world-destroying weapons of dominance –
If these people feel like they are actually
the heroic underdogs
Then you must respect their feelings!
Don’t laugh at mini tyrants with their short fuses and shorter attention spans
Don’t snicker when generals roll their eyes at wannabe tough-talk
Don’t smirk when foreign leaders laugh
at the broccoli in their teeth
the toilet paper on their shoe
They have put a lot of effort into their fantasies
And it’s important that we affirm that
Most of all
Don’t draw strength from the people around you
finding each other in this vast shadowland of grief
Do not search for a way through all this sun-eclipsing sorrow
Don’t reach for connection
to feel the humanness of your shared pain
or the strength of your collective refusal
Your grief couldn’t possibly be that powerful
Whatever possibly could?
Instead, shed a tear for our dear leaders
For they know not what they do
You must be sensitive to their grief and their anxiety
They know they don’t have long
and they really really need
to feel appreciated
right now
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!
“Our consciences were healthy in a society riddled with guilt” – Ruth First, 117 Days
