Bargaining is the impossible negotiation with what can no longer be changed.
The mind revisits the past, searching for a different decision, an unspoken word, a moment that might have altered everything.
We offer memories, promises, even parts of ourselves, as though loss could be reversed through some secret exchange.
Perhaps bargaining is simply love refusing to accept that there is nothing left it can do.
Grief, in Five Movements | III. Bargaining