The Comedy of Grief

Grief moved in without asking.

It’s the roommate who never pays rent,

leaves dishes in the sink,

and plays the same three voicemails at 3am on a loop—

my mother’s voice cracking on “I love you, beta”

the night before the aneurysm took her.

I keep her last dupatta in a plastic bag

so the smell doesn’t escape.

I open it once a year

and inhale like a junkie

until the fabric forgets her

and remembers only my desperation.

The world doesn’t stop for grief.

It wants me to smile at the grocery store

while I’m calculating how many sleeping pills

would make the cashier’s small talk disappear.

*** serves me ads for sympathy bouquets

between thirst traps.

The algorithm thinks I’m in the market for both.

I tried to mourn properly once—

wore black for forty days,

lit a diya every evening,

posted a tasteful black square.

Got 842 likes.

Nobody asked if I was eating.

Guilt is grief’s shadow.

It whispers: You should’ve answered that last call.

You were busy doom-scrolling.

You could’ve flown home.

You were broke and proud.

And yet, grief is a teacher.

It taught me to laugh at funerals

when the maulvi mispronounced her name

and the hearse got stuck behind a wedding baraat

blasting “Baby Doll Main Sone Di.”

I don’t know how to grieve right.

Is it letting go or holding on?

Is it deleting her number

or keeping it as my emergency contact in heaven?

Maybe grief is just living with a hole

and learning to wear it like couture.

I laugh through the tears,

because what else is there?

Grief is the punchline no one asked for,

but it’s mine.

And I’m still here,

carrying it like a roommate I

’ve learned to love—

ugly, loud, and impossible to evict.