It's kind of quiet

//Image uploaded by  Cheryl Girardot// sourced through Pinterest//

I started my day with loads of home chores
After both of them left for work
I finished my tea watching BTS videos
then I played music on high volume and put the laundry for drying
Folded clothes
cleaned the kitchen counter top
Wiped the tables
filled the water bottles and the jug
and then I cleared my bedroom and the study table
and set up my laptop
Blasting music again, I worked and worked
Until your friend showed up around 12:30pm
we spoke about things, you, work, life and family for about an hour.
Then I had lunch, watched an episode of the sucky Riverdale
after which I sat to work again.
I drew a few lines
and in swift moment just lost the will to do anymore work
Idk what happened
I just felt like lying down
so I did
I tried to brush through Instagram thinking it'll refresh me
But it didn't
I picked up that storybook, the ipad and moved to your bedroom, which the three of us share now btw.
I opened the window too
After going through a few pages, I finished the book
Not knowing what to do next and feeling numb
I decided to play that podcast on Grief
I almost fell asleep as the episode played
And woke up in a rush
feeling my heart rate go fast and suddenly slow
It felt different from anxiety
it was scary
so I tried to listen to the episode intently, occasionally with my eyes shutting
Even that got over after an hour
Once again I felt numb
I sat on your bed for a few minutes
then shifted a little towards the edge
Again I sat and just looked around the room
Then I walked around the house
I suddenly felt the energy gone
I thought maybe I could bleach my hair, I planned to anyway
So I went to your bathroom, where all the supplies were
saw your clothes
sighed
carried everything out
looked at myself in the mirror
again
nothing
blank
again I walked to the bedroom, got my laptop
and started typing this.


I can't explain what I'm feeling because its the absence of feeling itself.

I keep doing things
But there are moments where either guilt stops me
or just this emptiness
some times life feels too normal
and then I expect you to be alive again
but you aren't
and life goes back to being abnormal
There is so much to do everyday
I barely get a second to think or feel
I wish I didn't have to do so much


Last night I saw you in my dreams.
Maybe because I'd been desperately hoping to.
The last few days I'd been thinking what a soul looks like
or is it even a soul that is left after a person dies
if the body is just a shell
then everything inside that made you,
what does it look like?
what does that energy look like?
this energy that people keep saying lives on
that is stardust
what is it?
if we burnt your biological organs, your brain, your heart that just stopped beating that day
then what about everything else
your experiences
your emotions
your memories
your values
you
I thought maybe it wouldn't look like you at all
maybe its just an invisible formless shapeless cloud?
Maybe its not invisible but because it doesn't look like you did, we can never recognize it
or maybe its just gone
and all that's left is ashes

day before yesterday, when I got into bed,
I remembered all the days you came alone from 3kms away to pick me up for school
till 7th fucking grade
if I hadn't shown courage and come home on my own in a rickshaw that afternoon,
because bee encouraged me too
since our volleyball practice was cancelled
you would probably come pick me up all the way through high school
I was always embarrassed in middle school that you wouldn't stop.
But I love that you cared so much.
your friend told me today how you would sweat a lot worrying about me coming home if the trains were shut
or if it rained too hard
I recalled all the times you dragged me to the temple
and sometimes I'd accompany you as you prayed to each idol
the ears of that mouse idol was my favorite
when you would say I could whisper a wish and i'd get it
I would ask for the stupidest things
like I wish I can skip school
or that the math test gets postponed
but I know when you would bow to whisper in the other ear of the mouse statue
You were always wishing for something related to us
never for yourself
Even though after I reached that bratty atheist age, and behaved rudely when you dragged me the temple
I still loved sitting outside waiting for you
I know you felt bad that I refused to enter
I'm sorry for that
But I'm thankful you never forced me.
Sitting there and thinking about the world of religion, observing the city and the people, observing you
shaped so much of me
And being around you when you were doing something that brought you comfort
brought me comfort too
I just didn't know it then

I'm realizing there is no right way to grieve you
There is no right way to tackle loss.
I have to make my own way
Sometimes doing things helps
Sometimes it shuts me down
sometimes I cry,
like I did last evening
Maybe you heard me wailing? I put my head on the side of the sofa that was yours
where you died too
I would put my head on your lap, I tried to yesterday. But it was just the rough texture of the sofa cover and some pillows.
And sometimes crying feels like nothing
Sometimes I see a picture of you and tear up with love that I can't give you
and the love you gave me
and sometimes I feel absolutely nothing

I don't know how to do this
I wish I didn't have to discover and put so much effort everyday into figuring it out
It feels like this heaviness
Even though I am busy and I keep busy,
there isn't a second when the words
"Shes dead" don't play in my head
like a music box
but a very dreadful music box

Coming back to what a soul looks like
Weirdly I saw you twice in my dreams last night
I remember sleeping very exhausted, being the first to pass out when usually I'm the last to sleep every night
I saw you in your usual attire, I don't know what color it was
a salwar suit and dupatta
you were standing
although there was no floor
it was just space around you
not blackness
just this kind of grayness
like vacant space
and when I came to hug you
you vanished into thin air
and then I woke up
and felt this horrible physical ache in my heart
it scared me
I thought, maybe her heart attack felt like this?
Honestly for a second I thought I was dying
I got very anxious and just took deep breaths.
after a while I fell asleep again and the same dream occurred
this time you were wearing different clothes
but the rest was the same
you vanished again
Was it you?
Can you access my dreams
If you still exist in a different form?
Or was it just my subconscious coping with the fact that I will never ever hug you again.