When Death Knocks Upon My Door

When death comes to my door,

it will only find me dead.

Not the kind of death that silences a heartbeat, but the quieter one the one that happens while your pulse still insists on proving you're alive.

It will find a body that learned how to breathe without ever feeling the air, eyes that forgot what it meant to shine, and a soul that has been attending its own funeral for years.

It will wonder why my hands are so cold despite all the summers I survived. It will search my chest for a heart, only to find the ruins of one that kept forgiving until there was nothing left to forgive.

It will ask where my laughter went, and the walls will answer before I can they have heard its echo far more often than I have.

It will not have to introduce itself.

I've known death for a long time.

Not the one wrapped in black, carrying an end, but the one that visits in broad daylight, sits beside you in crowded rooms, and whispers that you are disappearing while everyone keeps calling your name. The kind that steals you piece by piece, so gently that no one notices you're becoming a ghost before you've even left.

Death will open every room inside me and find them abandoned.

The room where hope once lived will be covered in dust.

The room where love used to bloom will smell of dried flowers and unanswered prayers.

The room where I kept my childhood will be empty, except for the sound of a little version of me asking questions no one ever stayed long enough to answer.

It will ask me what happened.

I won't know where to begin.

Should I tell it about the nights that stretched so long they convinced me the sun had forgotten my address? About the words I swallowed because I feared they would become burdens in someone else's hands? About the countless times I smiled so no one would have to witness another quiet collapse?

Or should I tell it how exhausting it is to survive when survival is mistaken for living?

People think death arrives in a single moment.

They've never watched a person disappear one disappointment at a time.

One goodbye at a time.

One silence at a time.

One "I'm okay" at a time.

If they had, they would know that some funerals happen long before the coffin is built.

By the time death finally reaches my doorstep, it will realize there is nothing left for it to steal.

The dreams have already stopped knocking.

The faith has already packed its bags.

The innocence has long forgotten the way home.

Even my tears grew tired of falling and chose to stay inside me, turning into oceans no one will ever see.

Death will stand there, almost apologetic.

Not because it came too soon—

but because it came too late.

It will find someone who has already mourned every version of themselves they were supposed to become. Someone who has carried so many invisible endings that one final ending feels almost merciful.

And perhaps, before I leave with it, I will look back at the life I wore like borrowed clothes and whisper,

"I died so many times trying to stay alive that this... this is only the first death anyone else will notice."