By Talia T
(For AN. Who smiled for all of us, even when his skies were falling.)
Dear Allen,
In ten thousand years,
You wouldn't believe this.
It's my 28th birthday.
I'm sitting beside your mom,
Holding her hand,
Looking at you.
I wonder if you're laughing or crying,
Looking at us.
For the six-foot giant bunny-boy that you are,
I'm sure you're doing both.
We are talking about
Your applause-worthy sense of humour
The kind that thrives
Even at the worst of times.
You look at peace now.
They're going to set you free tomorrow.
The next morning,
I stand like a ghost in a wedding hall,
Draped in a bridesmaid’s saree.
Traditional wedding music
Thunders in the background.
Around 11am, I look up
The sun glimmers through the clerestory windows.
Specks of dust spiral in the light,
Floating, sparkling,
And slow-dancing for me.
I couldn’t make it to your funeral, buddy,
But I watched you go through the light.
Dear Allen,
I'm watching Lovesick again
The show that carried me through
Your initial six cycles of chemo.
It kept my mind occupied
While I waited
For your recovery between the cycles.
It’s a pretty great show
Warm, sad, and happy.
Two years later,
The show is playing on my screen again.
My thoughts bounce like a ping-pong ball,
Reminiscing our conversations from that time
Warm, sad, and happy.
I'm reliving it all.
It's a pretty great show.
I wish it didn’t trigger this grief.
Dear Allen,
I keep wondering
Why you sent me Nightbirde’s AGT performance
Months after your diagnosis.
Was it just your love for emotional golden buzzer moments
Where you tear up secretly?
Or was it because she had cancer too,
And didn’t make it either?
I’m probably overthinking it all.
But you already knew that.
Dear Allen,
I wish you were here.
I wish we could watch Aladdin together,
Feast on juicy steak
And three scoops of ice cream.
We were supposed to do that
Even at sixty years old,
At your mansion house,
Designed by yours truly.
Every day,
There is a brutal, paralyzing shockwave
That runs through my brain and body
As I think of the carcinoma
And how it stole you away,
In a heartbeat.
Dear Allen,
I haven’t spoken to Roy since your funeral.
He has nothing to say other than he’s sorry.
I told him you loved him the most
That you let him see you
In all your versions,
Till the end.
And for that, I’m envious of him.
I am unable to hold a conversation with him anymore,
Since most of it revolved around you.
I know sometime soon,
We can talk again.
I’ve been trying to be as loud with love as you were.
How did you find the energy
To make each one of us feel so special?
A hero. An angel. Superman.
Coolest, lamest Superman.
Dear Allen,
I finally spoke to your mom.
I don’t know why it took so long.
And I wish I had done it sooner.
She’s talking about how you devoured my cupcakes
After months of hospital food.
I told her how much
You spoke about her and your dad through the years.
I wonder if she’s crying on the other side too.
I wonder if she felt any sort of relief,
Or if I just opened up more sorrow.
Either way, I’m going to keep in touch with her.
I’ve also realised it’s best
I take a year or two off
Step away from everything I know.
Maybe I’ll re-bake the cupcakes I made you
Lemon curd and dark chocolate chip.
Or maybe I’ll rewatch The Lion King
And binge on cheese caramel popcorn.
I miss you
And wish I could get
Some of your sarcastic love
And cheesy support system, right about now.
My childhood sweetheart.
Forever cheerleader.
Dear Allen,
I spent your birthday
Watching The Lion King.
Celebrating you.
Celebrating you and me.
I can never get over
How moving, brilliant, and powerful the writing is
Every scene, the cinematic conversations,
The extraordinary music.
My heart was wailing.
I cried more than usual.
For your last couple of birthdays,
I sent you letters.
This time, I wrote to your mom.
Her response
Sounded just like you
Uplifting, inspiring affection,
Minus the supremely lame humour.
I miss you,
Forever soul friend.
Dear Allen,
It’s your birthday month.
Ten months since you’ve been gone.
I have written twenty-seven letters to you since
Eternally undelivered.
Dear Allen,
I’m thinking of our conversations
During your recovery period.
You had watched this firefighter movie
Where all of them died,
And you told me you cried.
Today, I watched this video of a horse running
Wild & free.
It was a cowboy’s last wish,
To ride his favourite horse.
The whole ride was set in his honour.
As the horse ran with the ashes on his saddle,
The ashes scattered ethereally,
Becoming one with the wind.
I wonder what they did with yours.
Your mum told me she hadn’t decided.
She broke down right after.
This was the day before your cremation.
I didn’t know what to say,
So I just cried with her.
There is this adorable scene in Tangled
Rapunzel looks at the horse Maximus with her big eyes,
“Umm... and it’s also my birthday!”
I kept looking at your still body that day,
Thinking of that scene.
I’m trying to feel
Your humorous aura through all this.
I miss you.
Dear Allen,
Someday, I’ll be living my best life.
I’ll meet the penguins,
Climb mountains without the grief,
Drive through waterfalls,
And smile at the heavens
Thinking of you.
Not today,
Probably not tomorrow either.
For now, the grief feels like an enormous glacier
Heavy and frozen,
Royally presiding over me.
Dear Allen,
On my 28th birthday,
I attended my fourth funeral
In less than a year.
It was yours.
When the news came,
I was on an overnight journey
Body and brain, withered.
Stuck in a loop of grief pangs
And numbing pain.
The years flash forward in my head.
I’m unable to comprehend
Or cope with the truth.
“They’re not in pain anymore.”
The words repeat in my head
As the last resort to self-comfort.
Dear Allen,
I miss you.
I’m only grateful you’re not in pain anymore.
Even if that means my memories of you
Are slipping into hollow infiniteness
And my conversations with you
Are transitioning to the endless blue skies.
I can’t wait to hike up the mountains again,
Watch the heavens open up.
The sky will flood with light again,
And shine through the trees.
Komorebi.
And I’ll be smiling at you.