A Familiar Visitor, A Poem by Avignya  Abhilasha Kashyap

A Familiar Visitor

Grief knocked on my door this morning,

not loudly

Just enough for my heart to recognize

its footsteps

It walked in like an old friend

made itself comfortable in the silence

and asked me,

if I had really forgotten him.

I smiled the kind of smile

that only broken people know

because grief already knew the answer!

It opened the curtains

let the morning light fall across the room.

and somehow even the sunshine

looked like it had known your name.

It played my favorite songs,

not to comfort me,

but to remind me

why they had become my favorites

in the first place.

It asked if I still remembered your birthday.

I laughed.

I don’t remember half my passwords,

yet somehow they still remember you.

It asked if I still got lost

on unfamiliar roads.

I said yes.

Then it asked if I still remembered

the way to your home.

I never answered.

Some silences speak for themselves.

Before leaving,

grief stood by the door

and turned around.

“I’ll come again tomorrow,” it said.

I wanted to ask it not to.

I wanted one morning

that did not begin with your absence.

But Grief only smiled.

because it knew something I didn’t.

that it was never visiting you,

to remind me of you.

It was visiting

because a heart that once loved this deeply

cannot unlearn love overnight.

Bio of the Poet: Avignya Abhilasha Kashyap is a poet from Bhubaneswar, India.