Category: Prose
Theme: A love forced to remain secret even after death
Layout by: Gabryael Quijano
Published by: Daniel Joshua Madrid
Date Published: October 31, 2024
Time Published: 9:55 AM
The world stood still the moment they lowered your coffin into the earth. I was not hoping for a reality like this to become real, but here we are. We had a bet—remember, who would be the last. Wondering who would be the first one to see in his grave. I didn’t think I would be the winner; I didn’t want to win. They took you away from me to soon. They think I’m mourning you as my friend. They cast their eyes on me with hollow sympathy, unaware that my soul was bleeding in ways they could never comprehend. I was a stranger in my own grief, suffocating beneath the unbearable truth that no one else knew—the truth that you were not just someone I laughed with, but someone whose heartbeat was intertwined with mine.
To them, you were a companion, a dear friend I lost too soon. To me, you were everything. How cruel that I must stand here, a facade of composure, while the world dismisses what we were, reducing our love to something so distant, so small. I am a mourner without a name, a lover without a title. And in this moment, I am nothing but a vessel for all the sorrow that has no place to go.
"Why, God?" I scream in silence, my fists clenched as though I could somehow tear through your grave, as if my rage could bring you back. "Why him? Why us?" I loved him… I loved him. How could you?
How could you take him from me, knowing he was the only thing that made this world bearable? You watched us, didn't you? You saw the way we clung to each other when no one else was watching, the way we laughed like fools in the safety of our own space, the way his touch was the only thing that ever made me feel alive. And still, you took him. Why? Was it not enough that we had to hide, to pretend, to mask our love behind friendship for the sake of their comfort? Did we not suffer enough? Wasn't our silence a sacrifice, our love a secret I was willing to carry to my grave?
I collapse onto his grave. “Please, bring him back. All I wanted was a happier life for both of us.” My body was trembling with despair. I hugged the tombstone more tightly, wondering if anyone, anyone can hear. “Look, I’ll never even ask for more, I’ll never be so proud, just please save him, just this once. I don’t care if we have to hide forever, if no one ever knows the truth, I’ll do it! We’ll live in silence, we’ll live in the shadows, just please... don't take him from me.”
I look to the sky and see no answers, only a hollow void that mocks my pain. If this is your justice, if this is your mercy, then what good is heaven? You’ve left me in hell, burning with a fury I can’t extinguish, condemned to walk this earth with a heart half-alive.
Are you happy? You've taken him, to leave me to rot in this world of yours alone. Is this what love looks like to you? If so, then damn your heaven, damn your promises. I'd rather burn in hell with him, wrapped in the truth of what we had, than live in a heaven that refuses to recognize our love.
I stare at your grave, my soul heavy with a rage I can’t contain. You took him, and with him, you took every bit of light I had left. And now I am left alone, raging against you, begging for answers I will never receive. If hell exists, I’m already in it—living in the ashes of a love you refused to see.
If this is your plan, God, then I reject it. If this is your judgment, then damn me too. Let me burn, let me fall, as long as it means I can still hold onto the truth of what we were. For in your heaven, if there’s no place for him and me, then I’d rather descend into hell—where at least our love was real. If love is your greatest gift, why did you make ours a sin?
And so, I will carry the weight of this secret until my last breath, haunted by the knowledge that the world will never know the depth of what we shared. To them, you are a passing shadow. To me, you were everything—the love I could never name.
In my heart, your epitaph will forever be: Here lies ████ ████. Here lies the love I was never allowed to speak.
IMAGE SOURCE:
heus hic est eius. (2024). hopeless. Pinterest. https://pin.it/7C1lXNHXp
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