Last Christmas, we played the perfect little family

over the dinner table under the dirty yellow lights.

Laughter bubbled through the cracks in the walls,

the scars on our elbows and shoulders and knees

have partly healed, the blood in our mouths has 

dried, the stitch on the lies was back, and our 

flesh was sewn back like it was before.

Follow the lights, they will take you the wrong way.

The smoke that you breathe in, your fingers 

smeared in the colors of decay, the infection's 

spreading too fast, too deep;

there's no saving now, they say.

But we've been living in a circle, never in lines, like

those across your face, criss-cross, criss-cross . . .

She cut her hair, you ripped off your dead skin,

I tried to pray but ended up cursing in the church.

There's never a way, or a promise, or a God.

*

My sister's sleeping beside me; she's

been dead for about a week. The house's

still, the air has turned to ash in my lungs.

I tried to catch a sniff of lavender from her

dress, but I couldn't bring myself to move.

Her skin's paper thin, I wish mine was too,

so I can tear it with a breath and set it on fire.

I hadn't called Mum when I found Phoebe

curled up in the bed, stiff and cold, her lips blue.

Mum was in Italy, perhaps having wine with

rich and gorgeous men or something. The floral

pattern on the pillow is burning in my pupils.

I can't remember how many times I've cried on

it, or even tried to stain it. The roaring silence

is pressing on my skull, squeezing out every 

thought, every inch of sanity, every teardrop,

until all that's left is the weight of my dead sister

next to me, her scent gone, her flames smothered.

I haven't touched her. Not that I won't but I can't.

When was the last time I hugged her or kissed her?

When was the last time we slept in each other's arms

like we were kids again, and the world was simple and

death was just something that happened to other people?

God, I can't even think of anything right now.

My insides are burning, every cavity in my body is

swelling to its fullest, every flower in the garden wilting 

away, while I'm lying here, staring at the ceiling,

listening to the nothing, pondering on what-ifs.

The house's been holding its breath for God knows

how long. I want to scream, but my throat's swollen shut

with grief or guilt, or both. This horrible shade of blue

is pinned on my flesh, and there's no way I can get it out.

It's burrowed under my skin, settling on my bones,

and I'm trapped in this rotting body, too alive to let go of.

The lines are getting blurry, my nails are itching to

rake themselves across my face, mark a line or two,

scrape away at the flesh while the blue gets darker.

But I've tried before, haven't I?

Believe me, I've tried. So many times that I've lost count.

I've bled enough to fill the sink three times over,

but it never drains, it never fucking goes away.

A single weed was enough to kill my garden of roses.

Too bad, we didn't pull it out; we let it grow into a monster.

*

I've thought about dying more times than I'd ever admit.

I've planned it out in my head—wondering which method 

would hurt the least, which would leave the least 

mess, which would finally make everything stop.

Meditation doesn't fucking work. You close your eyes,

and darkness swells like a tide, trapping a scream

inside your throat, tiptoeing around the edges of pain.

The monsters underneath my bed whisper

in my sleep, clawing myself open in a hollow room.

I should have died years ago. 

In that car, on that street when I veered left

instead of right, when I wrapped the front bumper

around a pole and just sat there, waiting for the fire, for

the smoke to fill my lungs, for everything to go black.

But the world wouldn't fucking let me go. So it dragged me

back, stitched me together, and shoved me out into the light.

"Look at her, sprawled out like a discarded doll,

and you're the one still breathing, breathing in the 

stench of rot, the memories rotting in your skull.

Wake up, wake up, bitch, it's your fault she's gone.

You could have saved her, but you were too busy 

living in your head, too wrapped up in your own mess."

I reach out to touch her, but my hand goes through the air.

I'm scared to sleep, scared to dream, 

afraid the monsters will take me too, pull me 

under the bed where I can't find my way back.

Her face flickers in the dark like a dying bulb,

and I chase the light, but it slips away.

So I lay there, still and unmoving, like another

ghost haunting my own life, trapped in the

in-between of what was and what can never be.

***

A/N: This poem is a snapshot of a moment when everything unraveled. Honestly, writing this shit was tough. Most of the time, we just want to drown it all out, you know? But when you dive deep, there's no turning back. The lights fuck with your head, and the thoughts just slip away. It's a wild ride.

It hit me while I was writing that grief isn't some neat, poetic bullshit. It's messy, it's chaotic, and it's fucking real. When I lost my granddad, shit hit the fan. I was thrown into a whirlwind of emotions, and all those mental disorders I'd been wrestling with came creeping back. The grief felt like a fucking tidal wave, crashing over me and dragging me under. I remember nights when I'd hallucinate him sleeping beside me. It was both soothing and gut-wrenching; I was desperate for the connection, yet painfully aware he was gone.

Now, talking about it feels like lifting a weight off my chest. There's something strangely relieving about putting those memories into words, about sharing the chaos that followed his death. Yeah, it was difficult, but it was also a reminder of how much I loved him. It's weird how sharing this stuff makes it feel a little lighter.

To anyone out there wrestling with grief, know this: it's messy as hell, and there's no perfect way to navigate through it. Let yourself feel the weight of it, the anger, the sadness, all of it. It's okay to let that shit out. You've got this, even when it doesn't feel like it. Just know that every step you take is a step toward finding your way back to the light.

Affectionately,

Sreeja.