Canvas

Do you know what it feels like
to brush your fingers against a lifeless image
and pretend it’s enough?
To touch thread instead of skin,
to cry into cloth because the man you loved
is no longer made of bone and breath?

It’s rage,
not just grief.
Because he deserved more.
More than a silent death,
more than a blurred photo,
more than a world that kept spinning
while his heart stopped.

They tell me to heal.
To breathe.
To let go.
But how dare they?

I don’t want peace.
Not when peace means forgetting how it felt
to see him laugh, to hear his footsteps,
to know he was somewhere out there—alive.

Let this pain carve itself into my ribs.
Let it scream in every quiet room.
Because if I ever stop hurting,
it means the world won.
And he becomes just fabric.

But he was so much more.
And I will not go gentle into a life
where his absence is something I’m supposed to accept.
Copyright © | Year Posted 2025

Poem

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Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace