I Have More Dead Friends Than Living Ones

Some people, when they die, do not truly leave. They remain as an empty chair at the table, a missing voice in the night, an unhealed grave in the heart. More than anything, we live with the silence of the words we failed to speak while they were still beside us.

I have more dead friends than living ones, their names are graves within me, never gone. Memories grow one by one as I stay silent, some laughing in my mind, some weeping in lament.

As if none of them had died just yet, as if none of them had left me yet; as if they would return if the doorbell rang, their tea still warm, their beds still laid.

Yet the earth took their voices away from me, the night took their faces from my eyes. My knees gave way; they took the coffin gently from my hands, and I remained — a mortal staring at the same absence.

I have more dead friends than living ones, all of them live quietly inside me. O my heart, endure this night without breaking again; why do all mortals live as if they will never end?

Every evening, grief grows at the same table, one chair stays empty, one breath fades away. They do not know I am among the dead while still alive; the absence of the gone lives on in those who remain.