what is pain?

is it watching your lover
become a stranger
while you desperately
hold on to the memories
ripping out your heart?

what is grief?

is it losing your family
to the inevitable
clutches of the unseen
afterlife, while you beg
to the Lord for more days?

what is heartbreak?

is it watching your dear ones
fall apart right before
your numb self and pray
helplessly for them to
stay strong and fight?

what it is loneliness?

is it pretending to be
a part of their world
as if your own
while all you ever wanted
was the taste of something real?

what is sorrow?

is it realizing that this
gift and a curse,
ephemeral yet perpetual,
lovely but hateful life
is all you want and all you loathe?

-Awditi