Flowers at Your Doorstep

This piece comes from a place of deep, unrelenting grief—a personal journey through the pain of losing someone too soon. It’s about the strange, haunting way love refuses to let go, even when everything else tells you to move on. It’s raw and tangled, a reflection of how loss can feel like holding onto a ghost—beautiful, tragic, and impossible to release. I’ve wrestled with my own heart and soul, I’ve begged God, knowing His will is perfect, in an attempt to gain acceptance for the truth. Yet my heart and soul are stubborn, rebellious forces that refuse to listen, that keep fighting the truth, restless and aching against reason. I’ve pleaded for them to be quieted, for the strength to let go of what cannot be changed. Writing this was my way of sitting with that sorrow, pleading for peace in a storm I can’t control, and trying to make sense of something too vast and overwhelming to bear.

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They tell me you’re gone, but I cannot believe,

For your death feels too unreal to conceive.

I’ve felt loss and death before—grandparents, friends—

But yours, like a wound, refuses to mend.

With others, I’ve mourned in solemn despair,

Accepting death’s inevitable snare.

But with you, I know not if it’s madness or love, or both intertwined;

That I grieve like your widow, though it’s only in mind.

Alone, I visit your grave, flowers in hand,

Hoping one day you’ll return them to me from where you stand.

A year has passed, but you’re not truly gone,

You live in me, and I feel withdrawn.

Half-possessed, grieving, I’ve lost my own face;

I’ve become more you than me, in this strange, haunted space.

They scold me, saying, “Let the dead rest,”

But my silly heart rebels, it won’t acquiesce.

Musing if this is the life I chose for myself, I sit all day by your grave in rain and storm,

Cold winter biting, but your presence keeps warm.

You’d tell me to stop, to let go, move on,

But my silly soul wouldn’t listen—its will’s too strong.

I know it can’t be reversed,

You won’t come back to life anymore.

You won’t be the you that I know so I know not what holds me to your grave even today,

When who knows where your soul has gone.

Why did God make me so stubborn and wild?

I wish I could move on, but I’m stuck, beguiled.

I don't even know why I'm still here or what do I even want or if it's all in my head

Because it feels you're the one who's alive and I'm the one who's dead.

Your love was too brief, your life too fleeting;

Now, only grief remains, endlessly repeating.

Perhaps it's for the best.

Had I lost you later, I might have died if I had to lay you to rest.

Still, if we had years, the pain might subside,

But short was our time, and it haunts me inside.

I didn’t show you my love enough, didn’t do enough to make you see,

How deeply, how fully you mattered to me.

They tire of me rambling about you, my endless refrain,

So I suffocate memories, conceal the pain.

Still, I stand by your tomb, in hopes you’ll appear,

To tell me it’s been too long, you’re still near.

You were too young to die.

And I was too young to feel so old and sigh.

Everyone else might forget you but I won't,

I don’t know how you felt about me anymore.

But I still stand by your door.

It doesn’t feel lonely; your presence feels near,

As I speak of my day, wishing you were still here.

I know death’s a door that cannot unclose,

And the you I once knew no longer shows.

But knowing a fact doesn’t make it easier to accept or feel right,

It doesn’t ease grief or soften the night.

Perhaps in life, you disliked or despised me, it’s true,

But my love remains steadfast, eternal for you.

What was I to you? I don’t know anymore.

But I know I loved you and will love you forevermore.

Why can’t I go home? Why can’t I let go?

Winter howls around me, burying me in snow.

I share my day with you, your grave my confessor,

Clutching the doll you gave me,

Knowing reality is a cruel oppressor.

You won’t come back, you won’t be the same,

Yet my heart still calls your silent name.

Even if you hated me, held me in disdain,

My love for you lingers, untouched by pain.

I dream that in death, we’ll meet once more,

On a sunlit field, free as we were before.

Where they can't come between us or reach us at all.

Even when in this life, there’s no hope, only this curse,

Grieving your absence, which couldn’t be worse.

I clutch your corpse, your lifeless form,

Refusing to let them take you away from me, defying reason, resisting the norm.

Like Cleopatra for Antony’s fall,

Or Dido’s lament, consumed by it all.

You were spring in my life, melting the frost,

Now winter is endless, with you I’ve lost.

Even as we grew, imperfectly entwined,

You were my light among the darkness confined.

Now the sun won’t rise; it’s an eternal night,

And I’m trapped in this realm, devoid of your light.

The last time we spoke, you were cruel, unkind,

Unrecognizable, like you’d left me behind.

Was your death the end, or had you been lost to me even before?

What keeps me here, by your grave’s cold door?

I know I should leave as your spirit probably wishes, should let you rest,

But something inside me defies the request.

I dream of the days we never could live,

Of all we could share, all I had to give.

If love means this torment, this endless despair,

Then I curse it—too much for one soul to bear.

Yet I hold on, though your body is cold and still,

Clinging to memories against my will.

They tell me to leave, to bury this pain,

But my heart clings to you, though it’s insane.

If paths had diverged, if we’d never met,

I wouldn’t be lost, my soul in your debt.

I hate you for leaving, for all you’ve made me,

And hate myself more for not setting you free.

But in this cold night, I’ll sit here again,

Loving you still, in this endless refrain.

© 2024 Inaba Tarek