Sittie Raihanah Macaager
(For Ina, my grandmother)
When did you arrive?
Have you eaten yet?
Where are you?
You used to ask me those questions
like they were part of breathing.
Now I ask the wind,
and it answers with nothing.
You died right after I graduated.
Right after the one moment
you waited your whole life for.
I wore that gown with pride.
Now it feels cursed.
Heavy with the silence of
what I never got to say.
I didn’t even get to tell you I made it.
That I did it for you.
Why does love stay so long,
only to tear itself away
in one violent second?
You were beautiful,
not in a delicate, storybook way.
You were beautiful in how you stayed.
Through hunger.
Through illness.
Through whispered prayers
when the world forgot to listen.
And now you’re gone.
I cry when no one’s watching.
Not to be seen,
but as if the ache
might bring you back.
Instead, it soaks my chest in salt,
chokes my throat with
everything I never said.
The tears are heavy,
not because I’m weak,
but because
you took a part of me with you.
And I didn’t get to choose.
You gave love
that asked for nothing.
Unconditional. Unshaken.
And all I gave you
was a goodbye you never heard.
I saw you leave,
not just the body,
but your soul
slipping out
like breath in winter air.
And I just stood there,
alive,
but empty.
They buried you,
as if any grave
could hold what you were.
But no grave is deep enough
for this kind of love.
This kind of loss.
If love could raise the dead,
I’d scream it into the sky
until my voice shattered.
But you’re not coming back.
And I am left
with a hundred memories,
a thousand regrets,
and a silence too loud to name.
I miss you in ways
language cannot carry.
And it hurts
more than anything I’ve ever known.
Ina, this is my ode to you.
My gown,
the one you longed to see.
My success,
your ever dream.
I got it.
I did it.
And it was all for you.