I feel sadness,
A quiet grief within me.
Not because someone has gone,
Not because life has ended.

We come into this world only to leave,
So why this sorrow?
Why this ache?
It’s not his departure that burdens my heart—
It’s the unhappiness he carried,
A life with so little joy,
So much pain.

Yet, through the window of my memories,
Whenever I saw him,
He was always smiling.
That smile—
Bright, enduring—
It lingers in my mind.

And now, I search for his picture
Amid a pile of photographs,
But I can’t find it.