GRIEF Poem: The Shape of My Solitude, by Aishwarya Kanchan

My bag tucked under my arm, eyes on my feet,
I gripped my palms, dug my nails to distract my pain as I strode towards my apartment.
It looked like I had a purpose,
but I was just fighting time.
I passed the hallway and greeted my neighbours with a terse but polite smile.
I adjusted the crinkle in my smile
to mask the tears boiling in my chest, threatening to spill.
The short hallway suddenly seemed a mile long.
A single bedroom of 24 metre square, with one bed and toilet- student room.
It had all I required at that moment,
privacy and a mirror.

I barely made it three steps—I could have just walked five anyway, it is a small room—
and collapsed to the floor.
Tears poured freely, uncontrollably,
as one hand clutched the arm of a chair and the other searched the ground for balance.
I sobbed until my lungs ached, until breath itself felt impossible.

With my face inches from the floor,
tears gathered into a trembling puddle.
My warm breath bounced back against my skin,

I wrapped my arms around myself,
tight, desperate—trying to replicate a warm embrace.
Someone’s, anyone’s
I rocked back and forth,
a rhythm as old as grief.

When the sobs dulled into hiccups,
I lifted my eyes.
There, in the mirror,
my reflection swam behind glass—distorted, exhausted.
The dim, warm light cast shadows beneath my eyes,
deepening the bruises life had left behind.

Then I saw it:
a hand in the mirror,
softly wiping tears from my cheeks, catching the snot without shame.
It moved without judgment, without pause.
From cheek to chest and back again,
like clockwork.

And I watched—
just as I have for the past twenty years—
as that hand made space for my sorrow,
and stayed.

It was my hand. My own strength, my own support.
I brushed away my tears, again and again,
propping myself up with hands that never gave up.
As I gazed into the mirror, wiping away yet another wave of tears,
I saw my reflection—not just a face, but a companion.
I imagined splitting myself in two,
and the version in the glass reached for me.
It consoled me, tried to mend what it never broke.
It quieted the storm inside me,
talked me down when I wanted to leave everything behind.

I owe my life to that reflection,
to the hands in the mirror that kept lifting me.
I owe it everything—for twenty years of wiping tears
no one else ever saw