{"id":6280,"date":"2025-12-01T15:40:55","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T07:40:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bangsamororeview.com\/main\/?p=6280"},"modified":"2025-12-01T15:40:55","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T07:40:55","slug":"on-july-twenty-five","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bangsamororeview.com\/main\/on-july-twenty-five\/","title":{"rendered":"On July Twenty-Five"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sittie Raihanah Macaager<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

(For Ina, my grandmother)<\/em><\/p>\n

When did you arrive?
\nHave you eaten yet?
\nWhere are you?<\/p>\n

You used to ask me those questions
\nlike they were part of breathing.
\nNow I ask the wind,
\nand it answers with nothing.<\/p>\n

You died right after I graduated.
\nRight after the one moment
\nyou waited your whole life for.<\/p>\n

I wore that gown with pride.
\nNow it feels cursed.
\nHeavy with the silence of
\nwhat I never got to say.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t even get to tell you I made it.
\nThat I did it for you.<\/p>\n

Why does love stay so long,
\nonly to tear itself away
\nin one violent second?<\/p>\n

You were beautiful,
\nnot in a delicate, storybook way.
\nYou were beautiful in how you stayed.
\nThrough hunger.
\nThrough illness.
\nThrough whispered prayers
\nwhen the world forgot to listen.<\/p>\n

And now you’re gone.<\/p>\n

I cry when no one\u2019s watching.
\nNot to be seen,
\nbut as if the ache
\nmight bring you back.<\/p>\n

Instead, it soaks my chest in salt,
\nchokes my throat with
\neverything I never said.<\/p>\n

The tears are heavy,
\nnot because I\u2019m weak,
\nbut because
\nyou took a part of me with you.
\nAnd I didn\u2019t get to choose.<\/p>\n

You gave love
\nthat asked for nothing.
\nUnconditional. Unshaken.
\nAnd all I gave you
\nwas a goodbye you never heard.<\/p>\n

I saw you leave,
\nnot just the body,
\nbut your soul
\nslipping out
\nlike breath in winter air.<\/p>\n

And I just stood there,
\nalive,
\nbut empty.<\/p>\n

They buried you,
\nas if any grave
\ncould hold what you were.
\nBut no grave is deep enough
\nfor this kind of love.
\nThis kind of loss.<\/p>\n

If love could raise the dead,
\nI\u2019d scream it into the sky
\nuntil my voice shattered.<\/p>\n

But you\u2019re not coming back.
\nAnd I am left
\nwith a hundred memories,
\na thousand regrets,
\nand a silence too loud to name.<\/p>\n

I miss you in ways
\nlanguage cannot carry.
\nAnd it hurts
\nmore than anything I\u2019ve ever known.<\/p>\n

Ina, this is my ode to you.<\/p>\n

My gown,
\nthe one you longed to see.
\nMy success,
\nyour ever dream.<\/p>\n

I got it.
\nI did it.
\nAnd it was all for you.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":false,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangsamororeview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangsamororeview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangsamororeview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangsamororeview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangsamororeview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bangsamororeview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6281,"href":"https:\/\/bangsamororeview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6280\/revisions\/6281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangsamororeview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangsamororeview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangsamororeview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}