Who Would Mourn Me?

For the one I hold together, even as I come undone. For the love I offer freely, even when it is met with indifference. For the hands I reach for, only to find them cold. For the nights spent longing, for the words left unsaid, for the quiet ache of being unseen—these words are for you.

My head pounds like a war drum,

like something inside is trying to break free—

or maybe it’s just me,

scratching at the walls of a life too small for my soul.

They warn me in hushed voices, as if it isn’t already happening—

Stress will kill you.

Your heart will collapse, your body will revolt.

As if I don’t already feel the unraveling,

as if I don’t already hear the cracking in my bones,

the slow betrayal of my own flesh.

But no one really sees, do they?

Not beyond what I can be for them.

Not beyond the weight I carry without complaint,

the quiet suffering mistaken for resilience.

At the end of the day, no hands reach for me.

No arms wrap around me in the dark.

No voice murmurs, You did enough today. Rest.

Except the ones who bore me.

And if I fell—if my body finally gave out,

if I crumpled like paper, breathless, empty—

they would only ask when I’d be able to stand again.

How soon until I can serve, provide, endure?

After all, I must constantly work and earn their love.

I am sick, but not in the way they think.

They believe I battle my health,

but my real war is with the world itself—

the hands that only reach for me when they need something,

the silence that lingers when I need something back.

And the cruelest truth,

the one that tightens like a fist around my ribs,

the one I have swallowed so many times it has turned to stone inside me—

No one fights for me.

No one holds onto me with the same desperate grip

that I have clung to others with,

knuckles bloodied, fingers trembling,

begging something, someone,

to prove that I am worth keeping.

But I know—God, I know—

if I loosened my grip,

if my hands slipped just a little,

I would vanish like breath on a mirror.

Erased, forgotten,

the absence of me no louder than a passing breeze.

What kind of love is that?

To know that the moment you stop giving,

the moment you stop breaking yourself apart for others,

they will not reach for the pieces.

I wish my dreams reached for me the way I reach for them.

I wish love wasn’t something I had to chase until my lungs burned.

I wish someone, just once,

held me in both hands and whispered,

"You don’t have to run anymore."

But I know better now.

I know no one is coming to save me.

It is late.

The world is silent.

And I am dissolving into the quiet.

I wish I could run.

Not to be found,

but just to know what it feels like

to exist without being needed.

Just once.

Just once, I want to be more than what I can give.

Just once, I want to be loved the way I love.

But the stars do not pause for those who fall,

and morning does not wait for grief.

So I will close my eyes,

I will swallow the ache,

and I will wake up tomorrow—

to do it all again.

***

Sometimes, I wish someone would hold me too.

Sometimes, I have bad days too—

days when the sky is too heavy,

when my chest is tight with the weight of unspoken things,

when my own heart feels foreign inside my ribs.

I wish someone would pull me close,

brush the hair from my damp forehead,

and whisper, It will be okay.

But even when I offer that gentleness to you,

you turn away,

your voice a blade, cold and precise,

cutting me down in places only I can see.

I have always answered when you called.

Always reached for you without hesitation.

But on the days my hands trembled,

on the days my voice wavered,

on the days I needed someone too—

there was only silence.

And so, I learned to keep quiet.

To hold my sadness like a secret in my palms.

To bury my longing beneath polite smiles.

Because telling you would only push you further away.

Because my pain would be too much,

another burden,

another excuse for you for even your ghost to disappear.

So I swallow my cries whole.

Let them settle like stones in my chest.

Wipe my own tears with the back of my hand,

and say, I’m good.

And I choke on all the love I want to give you,

all the tenderness I long to show.

But I know now—

it is unwelcome.

So I go to sleep alone,

my heart aching,

my head throbbing,

tears threading silent paths down my temples.

And I hold the doll you gave me once,

as if it could stand in place of you,

as if it could return the warmth you never could.

It is so lonely here.

The roads stretch endlessly, and I walk them alone.

The world spins, indifferent,

and I wonder if I will always exist like this—

offering love to ghosts,

waiting for echoes to turn into voices.

Some days, you hold me.

Some days, you are cold.

And I never know which version of you I will meet.

I have so much of you alive inside me,

but the you in this world feels dead.

And I am left grasping at shadows,

trying to love something that keeps slipping through my fingers.

I don’t know how to make you happy.

I don’t know if I ever did.

Nothing I give seems to be enough.

So I love you as if each day is the last,

because it always is.

Because tomorrow may come without you in it.

But I am learning.

Slowly, painfully,

I am learning—

To hold my own hand when the nights get too long.

To wrap my arms around myself,

because no one else will ever understand my heart.

To dance alone in the quiet,

to fill the empty spaces with my own warmth.

To love myself the way I have always longed to be loved.

To whisper to my own soul the words I have wished to hear from you.

To become the comfort no one has given me.

I know now that you and I

may never be what we once were.

I no longer expect anyone to walk beside me.

I have spent too many years traveling alone.

But still—

as long as you will let me,

I will be here.

I will answer when you call.

I will hold you when you shatter.

Even if, in the end, it means nothing.

Even if, in your eyes,

it is all just pretense.

Meaningless affection.

I will love until my soul crumbles to dust.

And yet—

I do not cry from my grief anymore.

No—

I laugh.

And laugh.

And laugh.

And I cannot stop.

Because what else is there to do,

when sorrow becomes absurd,

when the weight of it all presses down so hard

that even pain forgets how to be pain,

and turns into something else entirely?

I laugh,

because grief has made a home in me,

because it no longer asks permission,

because it sits beside me like an old friend,

because after all this time—

what else is left?

© 2024 Inaba Tarek