you

You have no business dying

not even 50, while watching tv.

Just like that your show ended

and you didn't even come out for a curtain call.

Did you hear her, your beloved wife,

saying you were her favourite person in the world, distraught and broken? 

And did you see your 14-year old, 

the one who wants to be just like you,

sitting shell shocked for half the day, then standing by you, over your coffin the other half,

whispering to you 

all that she doesn't have time to say? 

What about your 4-year old, the one who hangs around your neck all the time?

She was playing on the grass patch outside while everyone else mourned inside. She knew something sad was happening, that it involved appa but that's it.

As you pulled out in your truck, songs of shiva in the air, 

she only asked, 'is appa in there?"

and then "I want to go home."

And what about your eldest,  shouldering the burden of the world, your world, at just 19? She was forced to stand stoic, as her mother sobbed inconsolable, and her sisters mute in sorrow. 

Will you look down on them and cry too? 

Their love for you was not enough to hold you 

and you left.