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Living through Death: A letter of love to the ones no longer


Dear whose dearly starts with A, D, J, R, or the rest in the alphabets, 


I sat at your funeral by myself with my own self. It was in a dim room with grey four walls, the kind of metaphor poets use for representation. I am trying to be cliché here, so this room is a representation of us. Just that I am the only occupant now.


I opened your coffin again.

I open your coffin every time the eerie sounds in the room bring back flashbacks of our juvenile days. But from my honest experiences, it is never special. I am only welcomed with the foul smell of your rotting memory and you are gradually fading away more as you turn into dust. I intentionally keep the windows open hoping that the winds will carry your thoughts away.  So today, I told myself “For the last time”, this shall be the last time I will open your casket.


I am thinking that had I chosen dramatics I might have been famous by now or if people only spoke in figures of speech, I might even be a member of the Language Council of Metaphors. So I hope you will read this in light spirit.


I wanted to let you know that I have mourned infinite times for you; Wept have I too much at your uncountable funerals that I kept re-enacting them again because you never gave me one. Still, I am not fluent with farewells. Will it be easier if I remove the ‘Good’ in ‘Goodbye’? But will ‘Bye’ alone ever be enough to mark the end? Well, you never gave me a ‘Bye’ nor included a ‘Good’ in it. You probably practised Cinderella well too often to have disappeared so suddenly. Of course, only the guilty die terrible and I am at your funeral.


On the bright side, I wished you peace and joy. To be honest, I love you and I miss you. I cannot yet muster the courage to put a headstone on you. I cried for the laughs, the walks, and the conversations shared but lost. I have only to reminisce them. I even said a eulogy for you, don’t you know they even have public speaking classes now? They teach you how to poignantly give an unprepared speech too. I said, “*Alphabet* is the kindest friend, and I am glad I knew them”.


Over your dead body I have screamed my mind out that I longed for you and that I am sorry- please, Come back.

But the dead don’t, do they? They are the ones who left. You left. You killed yourself and you left, Or did I kill you and you left? Am I the villain? Or am I the victim? 

You can hate only if you loved once. So do you hate me still? As for me, I don’t care for you anymore. You are dead to me.


But in death, can forgiveness come? No, it’s not about second chances, just forgiveness alone. And can this be the last memorial? An end to all these acts. So that you will rest in peace under your own coffin in this funeral where I am and so that I may rest in peace in my coffin in that funeral where you are seated.


So I sit here with regrets but no longer hurting. 

I open your coffin for the last time, and as I weep in remembrance, my tears touch your crimson skin. One drop and another they mar the inks of your body, Word by word I write about your funeral till the last page. I close the covers of your coffin and I put it at the graveyard- these shelves that consist of love and friendships dead to me. I end with wishing you good health and happier life without me.



Yours sincerely,

With-a-Pencil. 

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