graveyard of all the people i've ever loved

taj mahal is a grave - the lunchbox

it's 9:28 am and i'm thinking about death. there's an iced black coffee in front of me on the table, i wish there was a word for the condensation that's happening because of the heat. the ice cubes are slowly disappearing, i have to leave in 30 minutes if i want to reach there on time. yesterday, when i was coming back home, i took the road less traveled. the road less traveled has a hindu cremation ground and a christian graveyard, both are adjacent to each other. i take that road when i want to get home quickly or when i need to walk to clear my head as it's covered with trees and bougainvillea. i shouldn't have done what i did yesterday, i stopped right in front of the cremation ground and saw a man trying to burn a pyre. he looked old, he must have been sixty or seventy, he looked fragile like he would shatter if someone spoke to him. i moved on quickly upon realizing what i was doing standing there, i looked back to see that the pyre was now burning. you shouldn't look back, never look back is what my mother used to tell me when i was a kid. she used to tell me a story about ficus religiosa, known commonly as the peepal tree, in the story, if you looked back that meant the ghost would catch you. the story was silly and false but it was enough for me, i was scared of the peepal tree for years. yesterday while coming home, i don't know why i looked back.

it's 11:34 pm and i'm still thinking about death. trying to search what happens after you die but every search result is a type of funeral home site. i was reading one article about reincarnation after death when a pop-up advertisement scared me. the low hum of my old laptop is the only sound in my room, it's cold in here. i think dying is a process, it must be. the christian graveyard remains empty during most afternoons, people visit their loved ones every once in a while. there's always a crowd on friday, people rush in and out hurriedly carrying their grief like a child. someone told me that grief is the final stage of love, you can live with it and no one can take that away from you. it's a reminder that there was once love. it's the final translation of love and it's just yours, you don't have to share it with anybody. your grief is all yours and no one else's. maybe that's why i carry my grief with me, taking it everywhere. i wonder if people can see my grief like i can see theirs sometimes.

i have heard about people dying, so many relatives died as i was growing up but i never noticed the emptiness that they left behind. i wasn't close to them i suppose, i didn't notice them leaving but there are some deaths that i haven't processed still, deaths of close relatives and friends. i lost a friend during quarantine, not to some disease but to her own. i still can't write anything about her, i believe she might just text me one day saying how it was all a big misunderstanding, a rumor that someone spread about her. she hasn't texted me in three years but i think someday she will. i can wait for her to text me, i can do that much for her. death is weirdly complicated, i wonder what it must feel like. hopefully it feels like a warm hug from someone you love, maybe it feels like a mother's embrace. there was a time in my life when all i thought about was what would happen if i ended up dead, physically my body would have been left behind but what about the soul? do i even believe in souls? maybe death is like a machine shutting off, a low hum and then dead silence. maybe your brain just blanks, i heard your brain plays seven minutes of your memories. i found that funny when i first heard about it, as if i would have to look at what a failure i am before dying. a montage of my worst years and fears, of broken promises and bruised knuckles. i think the worst thing in life is death, how could i trust something i know nothing about?

i had this elaborate nightmare as a kid, i was six feet below the ground alive but in a coffin. the walls closed in on me as i tried to scream but the words just wouldn't escape my mouth. i woke up with a start only to realize that i was getting suffocated under the big blanket which maybe triggered the nightmare, it felt so real. i could smell the wood, it was nauseating along with the smell of wet soil. my throat closed up when i first heard about my friend, we had been close. the last text i sent her was some weird meme, a month before it happened. i remember rushing to call her but stopping myself because what would i even say, how do these things go? i still think she'll probably text me sometime in the near future when she wants to catch up over a cup of coffee. i am still stuck on the first stage of grief, maybe i looked back to get past it.

am i not just a graveyard of all the people who have ever loved me and i have ever loved back? the memories, both good and bad, rot inside me changing me from within. i still hold onto the memories for no apparent reason, i just do. my body, a grave of all the people i liked. i carry them inside of me wherever i go, the things they used to do are now my habits. i still listen to the playlist a guy made for me back in 2022 because he never deleted it even though we don't talk now. i curve my g's exactly like that one girl i liked. i order my coffee in the same manner as my ex, i say the same thing every time as he used to do. i still use the perfume she gave me, although i wanted to throw it away at times. i wear the necklace he gifted me on my 18th birthday every time i go to meet him, his face always lights up seeing it. everything i touch ends up dying and i have to keep them forever in the graveyard that is my heart now.

taj mahal is called the monument of love but no amount of love Shah Jahan had for Mumtaz would ever change the fact that taj mahal is a grave. it's a grave, that's what it is. that's what i am, a grave of conversations and people and memories and love. nothing i ever do will ever change it, no matter how much love i give. i will still be a grave, rotting inside. you can decorate the grave however much you want but it would still be a grave. no matter how beautiful taj mahal is, it won't change the fact that it's just a grave.