Author’s note: Every day last year, I would spend lunch in the library working on school work and making small talk with friends. I would walk past a table with a small, quiet Indian girl, who minded her own business and worked diligently. I always wondered what her opinions were, what the world looked from her eyes between the two folds of her hijab. I would never know, and I regret it to this day. I wrote this poemafter Chetana Guduru was tragically murdered last year. Many students were grieving, and I felt similar pains when my sister died 5 years earlier. I empathized with my friends, with the student body, and out came this, both in attempts to soothe the raw wound we suffered, and to smooth the scars of my past.
Sacred Stones Lost In River
I blow for you
My lung’s winter winds
For my heart pumps icy blue
Asif by ice cicles, pinned.
How little heat can I accrue.
Am I being punished? Have I sinned?
For there lies a hole in my heart.
To describe my feelings,
I don’t know where to start…
You were a jewel, a shining star;
you weren’t supposed to go,
I’m not ready to part,
You were like others
you brought smiles
and,
well, you brought tears…
But! Know you made an impact upon your peers!
You will not be forgotten!
Up
you brought us
when we were
Down
till you uttered your last sound.
you were devoted, you gave your heart!
Had ambitions! Flying towards a goal,
as if a dart
But in this hour, the dart was obstructed.
But, like a dart, you will carry on.
This game might be over,
but it leads to the next
like there’s more to books
than just text.
So I know it’s tough, friends and all.
That no one calls back to her name,
Even though you say it again and again,
hoping, as if,
Like magic….
It erases something so tragic. But know this is not the truth!
For your heart calls back instead!
Only in time will this pain be soothed
But she is not truly dead!
It may be cliche’, what I say.
But here she stays, in our own little ways!
She’s imbued in our memories,
She’s imbued in our experiences.
In that empty desk…
We keep staring
We keep glaring
And it’s normal to feel angry.
I mean, this event is also quite scary.
This clash and smash of emotions
This grief we experience as we go through the motions
However, as a famous graffiti artist once said:
“twice do we die, once with our last sigh,
and twice when our name is last said.
That, that is when we are truly dead.”
So, as her name bounces among our heads,
Her soul did not stay in her coffin’s earth bed.
So say her name, with a smile!
Because time never stops her dial,
and she wouldn’t want you dying too.
So smile, and say her name.
And in her place, together, continue this game.
Till we’re together again.
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