Maybe It’s How Life Goes

By Vusurumarthi. Akshaya Srija

Death—

an uninvited guest

who stays far too long,

teaching us to believe in things

we never wished to feel.

I wish I’d spent that week with you,

wish you had asked why I was distant,

wish I had told you—

it was nothing, only noise in my mind.

I wish I had gone with you that Sunday,

just to share those final, fleeting hours.

You left the house with pain in your chest,

stepped into the ambulance,

and never came home again.

You left while I was waiting—

to argue, to laugh,

to hear you scold me for being too loud at night.

You left when we were ready

to live our ordinary chaos once more.

I didn’t cry that day.

Your still body lay before me,

and yet, I felt you there.

But when the sand fell on your face,

something broke quietly inside me.

When they sealed that final door,

I understood absence—

the kind that hums through every room.

Home lost its voice.

I could no longer enter it.

Now, I hold what remains—

your laughter, your lessons,

the warmth folded inside each memory.

You live in our decisions,

our small triumphs, our quiet nights.

You linger in every breath

that dares to remember.

I’ll never forget your voice at dusk,

when I said, “It’s never too late for a day,”

and you smiled,

“One day, you’ll see—it never really is.”

And maybe, you were right.

Maybe it’s how life goes.

By Vusurumarthi. Akshaya Srija