The Last Letter

By Preetham Halwi

Two battlefields, two weary souls—

One in the dust, one in the silence of home,

Loneliness carves its name in their minds,

Echoes of words long spoken,

Haunt the chambers of their hearts.

Praises pass them by like fleeting shadows,

While careless whispers weigh like chains.

Walls become their only witness,

Mirrors their silent confessors—

To grief, to rage, to whispers of love,

That tremble beneath their breath,

But hearts, though fragile, hold the wreckage,

And bear the ache like sacred scars.

Time, the slowest tyrant, ticks aloud—

Each second a hope, a prayer,

To return, to be wrapped again,

In arms that know no war.

He stands tall at the nation’s edge,

Shielding his mother’s soil with steel and soul.

She stands firm within their quiet home,

Guarding the vows they swore in love’s name.

Even nature turns against them—

Scorching suns, merciless frost,

Relentless rains that drown resolve,

And storms that break more than bone.

Still, they endure. Still, they write.

Letters—fragments of soul on paper—

Ink weeping with longing and grace,

Some bring joy like sunlight on stone,

Others bleed sorrow between the lines

To be a soldier is to be forged in fire,

But to love one, is to burn in silence.

And then, in the hush of fate,

The final letter comes,

To him: the breathless joy of a life begun,

The promise of a child’s first cry.

To her, the trembling words,

“I’m coming home.”

By Preetham Halwi