After I Remained Poem by ashok jadhav

I did not choose to stay when you were gone.
Survival simply claimed me without asking,
left me breathing in a world thinned by loss,
while you became what memory must hold.
People say I am strong, but strength feels wrong—
as if endurance were a kind of theft.
Each morning I wake to my own pulse,
a sound that proves I am alone again.
There is a loneliness in being spared,
in watching life continue past its meaning.
I walk among the living like a witness,
carrying stories no one needs to hear.
If grief is love with nowhere left to go,
then mine follows me through every hour.
I live because I must, not because I want—
learning what it means to remain, and miss you.