The Lament of Unseen Sorrows

Upon the silent edge I found her grace,

No pallid shroud, nor clanking of a chain,

But lullabies enwoven in her face,

And ancient sorrow folded in her pain.

She spake, "I am the shade of what untold,

The grief unchristened, by the world unnamed.

'Postpartum,' they did call it, swift and cold,

As if mere time such anguish had contained."

No chilling draft, no whisper on the air,

Yet felt I then the burden of her sight.

She told of children, vanished past compare,

Not lost to earth, but cradled from the light.

For strangled dreams, ere breath their being drew,

And joy, in infancy, by hands unseen,

Were offerings given, bitter, stark, and true,

The death of futures, where no light had been.

"These are the ones no burial rites attend,"

She murmured low, "Thus must I ever bear."

"Dear Jayan," once she breathed, "unto the end,

I rode unseen, a shadow in your care.

You turned not 'round, but hastened on your way,

Your swift pursuit of life, my silent plea."

A moment's hush, before she turned to say,

"Yet foe thou art not, but the first to see."

And I, a vessel, then did only hear.

Of hands that semblance bore of tender love,

And words that kissed like knives, a poisoned dart,

Of binding rules, imposed from high above,

That sealed the chambers of her fragile heart.

"When broken, they did name it 'drama's guise';

When tears did fall, they marked me weak and faint."

She leaned, a stillness in her phantom eyes:

"Had they but listened, in my broken plaint,

They would have heard a lullaby's sweet strain

Amidst the echoes of my piercing scream."

A brittle, soft, ethereal laugh, like rain

On dusty panes, disturbed the solemn dream.

"I seek no haunting, nor a soul's despair;

But to be marked, beyond a warning's chill.

No madness mine, no monstrous form I bear;

But simply... missing, and remembered still."

I sought to ask what solace she required.

Her voice, a balm, across my spirit spread:

"A name. A voice. A place to be inspired.

A quiet corner where my soul may shed

Its long-held grief, and find at last its rest."

Then, softly, in my ear, her spirit sighed,

"I love you, Jayan, for your heart so true.

None other merits this, my truth, my pride;

Forevermore, I shall be ever you."

And so I write this verse, a sacred vow,

For spectral friends in quiet rooms who wait,

For mothers hidden 'neath a cheerful brow,

For unseen children, sealed by cruelest fate—

You are discerned.

You are not lost to night.

You are my friend, across the veil of pain.

And in this bond, you stand, and are not lone.