Widow’s Pain Unshared

I saw beneath your laugh

Bitter agony hides.

I know it, the way you play

Hide and seek with emotions

I know how you long to cry

And forget bitter memories

I know you never found time

Space or medium to weep.

I know that you lost

I saw you give wild smiles

While he lay, too paralyzed to respond

And I knew, you smiled

Because you couldn’t weep.

I didn’t find words to speak then

Nor now. I do not pity.

I know the pain

Though lost not have I

As the man you lost.

I understand the game you play

Between laughter and tears

But dare not ask my courage.

Forgive, dear friend, my inability

To feel the pain you feel,

Haven’t lost one so loved yet,

Certainly not the way you did.

ANUSHA.U.R.

15 yrs

This was after one of my teachers started confiding about the sufferings she faced after her husband died of renal failure.