Grief Has Varied Shades

By Akriti

Just because you can’t see it

doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist 

just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean that thousands of children 

aren’t dying of hunger 

that the planet isn’t covered in plastic 

and bloodstains

that women aren’t being assaulted 

and queers aren’t being denied 

basic human rights 

just because you choose not to feel it

doesn’t mean the feeling doesn’t exist 

one day you are going to feel it

and realise that it has been there all along 

the joy, the hunger, the fear, the lust, the despair, the rage, the love

they all have a way of sneaking up on you

most cruel of them all is grief 

it comes unannounced 

like a gust of wind on a sunny day

and carries you away with it

once you are in grief, it engulfs you whole

grief has varied shades

the ash grey of losing a loved one

the midnight blue of losing a dream

And somehow i think of death often

not in a dreadful ominous way

but in a fond familiar way

that one day she is going to find me

and when she does

i hope she looks at me and smiles

knowing that i lived a full life

a life full of emotions and experiences 

and words and at times, long silences

i hope when she looks into my eyes

in that hazel brown shade of my iris

she sees the reflection 

of all the people i loved

all the places that took my breath away 

and all the pieces of art and literature 

that inspired me to live just a little more 

i hope when runs her fingers 

through my hair 

she finds jasmines and heartaches 

and dragonflies 

and when she strokes my cheek 

with her thumb 

i hope she reads the poetry of my life. 

By Akriti