there used to be four
that’s how most families begin
four people
sharing one roof
one table
one stubborn history

and no one tells you
that four
is just a temporary number
a season
a brief agreement
before the world
starts doing its subtraction

because time
doesn’t ask
who’s ready
it just moves
steadily
like it’s got somewhere to be

and one day
four becomes three
then two
then one

and the last person standing
doesn’t get a medal
or a speech
or a soft shoulder
just the responsibility
of carrying everything
nobody wrote down

the laughter
that had no reason
the arguments
that made no sense
the days
that weren’t special
until they were gone

you carry it
because someone has to
because that’s the job
of whoever
didn’t go first

and if you’re lucky
really lucky
you get to start the math
all over again

you hold a child
or a niece
or someone the world
has trusted to you
and you realize
you are quietly
passing the weight forward

not to hurt them
not to burden them
but because this
is how love works

love is a daisy-chain
of remembering
and being remembered
of holding
and letting go
of breaking
and still choosing
to try again

we think love
is all sweetness
but it isn’t
it has edges
it has cost
it has the nerve
to outlive us

and when you leave
someone will carry you
the same way
you carried the others
not because they want to
but because they belong to you
and you belong to them

that’s the circle
that’s the deal
that’s the truth
nobody wants to say out loud

love doesn’t save us
love just refuses
to let us disappear

and maybe
that’s enough

maybe
that’s everything. 

a note

this free verse began with a half-memory something i’d read long ago, maybe in tamil, maybe in english, about a family and the last one left holding all the others. the details were gone, but the thought of that always stayed. it resurfaced now and then. 

only after finishing the free verse did i ask chenthil if he recalled anything like it in tamil poetry. because I thought it was from a poem by athmanaam. he said it was a coincidence that he’d been talking to his daughter about the same idea that morning and then he sent me the source. it turned out to be vikram seth.

so this isn’t drawn from vikram seth’s lines, but the spirit of the seed leads back to him. and in a way, that lineage mirrors this free verse itself. a memory passed forward, carried by whoever holds it next.

families subtract, memories accumulate, and someone always someone ends up holding more than they meant to. if we’re lucky, someone after us will carry us too.

---

How rarely all these few years, as work keeps us aloof,
Or fares, or one thing or another,
Have we had days to spend under our parents' roof:
Myself my sister, and my brother.

All five of us will die; to reckon from the past
This flesh and blood is unforgiving.
What's hard is that just one of us will be the last
To bear it all and go on living.

- Vikram Seth