If I Don’t Come Back, Remember This
By a soldier, before the final march

If I don’t come back,
don’t remember the sound of my boots
walking away into the early fog.
Instead, remember the silence that followed,
The kind that pressed its forehead
against your windowpane at 4 a.m.,
when sleep turned traitor
And the pillow beside you stayed cold.

If I don’t come back,
Don’t picture the flag
folded, stiff, ceremonial,
delivered with dry salutes
by men whose mouths never learned my name.
Instead, recall how I held you
That morning I left,
the way my fingers lingered
just a heartbeat longer
on the curve of your spine,
memorizing it
Like a prayer whispered between wars.

If I don’t come back,
know that I died
With your name still breathing
at the edge of my mouth
not shouted,
But cradled like something sacred,
a secret I wasn’t willing to surrender
even to the wind that carried my last breath away.

I want you to remember
How I once stood barefoot in the rain,
laughing like a boy who had never known uniform,
My shirt is clinging to my chest
as you shouted from the doorway,
“Come inside, you’ll fall sick.”
I didn’t
because that night, your voice
was medicine enough?

If I don’t come back,
Don’t let our child grow up
knowing me only through
a dusty photograph and a line in a textbook.
Tell them I once made the world disappear
with a single bedtime story.
That my laugh would fill the kitchen
before Sunday tea was ready.
I once forgot your birthday
But remember the way your eyes changed
when you wore that green saree.
Tell them I wasn’t brave every day.
Just on the days that counted.

If I don’t come back,
Burn my letters
but not the margins.
That’s where the real words lived.
The ones I wrote after midnight
When fear was louder than gunfire,
and your memory
was my only shield.

And if you must weep,
weep in the kitchen
while boiling rice,
or while folding my last shirt
The one with the missing button
You kept saying you'd sew.
Let your grief live among
ordinary things.
That’s where I’ll always be.

In the scent of naphthalene balls
Inside the cupboard I built,
in the sharp sting of your first winter without me,
in the slow clicking of the fan
as it spins and spins
over our half-read books.

If I don’t come back,
light a lamp at dusk.
Not for me,
but for the space we shared
that small, flickering corner of the world
where our love lived like a quiet revolution.
And when the time comes
and the years grow heavy in your bones,
know this
I didn’t go to die.
I went to protect the right
to love the way we did
bold, and unafraid.

So if I don’t come back,
don’t wait at the door.
Don’t curse the sky.
Don’t lock away the laughter.

Just do one thing:
Live with grace.
Make your tea too strong.
Keep your windows open for stories.
And when someone asks about me,
smile
and say,
“He never really left.”

.    .    .