I once asked my mother, “Why are there tears in your eyes?”
She told me that she’d lost a good soul tonight.
I asked her, “Where do lost souls go?”
She replied with a weak smile, “To a land far beyond our own.”

Ten years hence, I knelt by a grave
Clothed in misery and wrapped in pain.
My sister, a girl of five, asked me why I’d cried
I told her, I was just too scared to be left behind.

Days were all grey, filled with a deafening silence,
Nights were the onslaught of the mind’s tyrants.
Weeks became months, months turned into a year,
Yet all the time in the world couldn’t heal the wounds in here.

I tried and tried, but I kept falling and failing
To discern the intensity of this morbid self-loathing
I feared that I’d forget, and I feared that I’d never forgive
And I feared that, with time, I’d rot until I was nothing.

And nothing I was, for a while. No joy, no face, no name, no grace.
My tears weren’t enough to warm his cold grave.
But with dusk, came dawn. A sliver of light, a ring of laughter.
I learnt to breathe easier, stand taller, be happier.

Like a child without her mother
Forced to fend for herself and no other.
I rose from the ashes of the one I’d lost.
A phoenix in every sense, a life brought back from the fatal frost.

To my dear uncle, whom I’d lost.
A good soul, a good friend, a piece of my heart.
I bid you a final adieu, for there is only now
And now is what I choose it to be.

I choose to let you go,
And to set myself free.
And thus the world moves on and time passes by
Your ashes amidst the trees you grew by and by.


I will sing your lullabies to the little one today,
And hope she turns out like you some day.

To my friends, who’ve lost someone close to their hearts,
Remember, their story has ended, but yours has yet to start.

So weave your words, tell your tales, and choose the life you want.
There might not be a happy ending for you, for death doth take us all.

Just listen to your heart and maybe you might stand a chance.
To find your beat, chain to the rhythm and maybe even sing along.