"I wrote poems instead of crying. I channelised a traumatic experience into words. They gave me refuge..."
-Kadeeja Kallai
Author: Sumyrah Khan
August, 2021.
I wrote when I was young, but I would never show it to anyone but when my brother met with a car accident in June of 2018 and quickly slipped into a coma. I wrote poems instead of crying. I channelised a traumatic experience into words. They gave me refuge.
Over a span of 10 months, I wrote 50 poems for him. I would visit him most of the time and read the poem aloud; I would like to believe he enjoyed them. He showed signs of recovery at first. He would open his eyes and try to speak, but then his sodium would go dangerously low, and we would be back to square one.
In the 11th month, we lost him, and the grief was unbearable, and the poems would always salvage me. I published the book in his name, and two years later I still write poems for him, I would still like to think he listens when I read them.