Author: Ritika Jain, Class VIII E
And when I tell my kids about love,
I’ll tell them about you.
I’ll not speak of the hugs and kisses and roses,
you flowered over me on Galantines.
I’ll tell them about our late-night talks by the beach
the way your voice after a hectic day bought comfort.
I’ll mention that love lives
in the simple, ordinary efforts.
Messages when everything felt a bit too much
Your check-ins on heavy, rainy days.
How you used to remember stuff I forgot easily.
And laughed with me when I couldn’t find my smile.
I’ll tell them what love can also look like.
Someone silently giving you a shoulder to cry
Willing to let the world fall apart, without asking you to hold it all by yourself.
I’ll say this love sometimes wears hoodies and enters home without permission,
Texts late at night when you can’t sleep.
And shows up to watch reels together when skies go grey.
And also, sometimes love isn’t always about wedding or kisses
It can be a person lending a steady hand through all the hardships.
Even if they wonder how I learned all this
I’ll whisper your name,
Telling them about the quiet ways you cared,
With loyalty stitched into every moment
Leaving the kind of smile only real friendship can leave behind.
I walked past my own grave today, leaving emotions in the backseat,
I sat next to it.
No flowers, no stone. Thus, no name.
A dip into the earth,
Where somebody once lived,
Now outgrew the need to stay.
Millions cried,
The sky, still stone cold,
Looked at me,
As if it knew, it wasn’t a death,
It wasn’t something to mourn about, maybe just a transcendence.
Beneath me,
The earth ice cold, held silence,
Like an old promise somebody once kept.
It didn’t cry, nor did it kneel.
It only remembered what it felt to forget someone half-there.
Echoes surrounded me,
Faint voices that once spoke at my place,
And footsteps I once feared to follow, now reflect back with new light.
From everything I had beneath the ground,
Absolutely nothing reached for me.
None of the ghosts begged to return. Some say it wasn’t a burial,
It was a release, a quiet crossing,
From the shadow to something still unfolding.
And as I walked further,
Stepping away, unburdened,
With air shifting gently, like a breath,
With the weight less cruel,
Into a path unfolding its stillness.
A path where every loss finds its way to bloom.
