Funeral of Self
written by: Astghik Nadiryan
Today I am grieving.
I am grieving the life long gone and the life once imagined. I am grieving the love I believed I had and the love I never knew was never meant to last. I am grieving the person I could have been and the mother I once was. I am grieving the evenings spent in tears and the blunt knife I once held, hoping everything could come to an end. I am grieving the daughter my parents could have had, and the friend I could have been.
Today I mourn and cry. Today I am at my own funeral — a woman fighting to be accepted, to feel enough, to be whole, to be good. And at the funeral, there is only me, standing at my grave, bending down to gather wet soil in my hands and throw it at the closed coffin, to hide the terrible face away. I throw the soil, and yet it lands not only on the coffin but on my hands, on my face, and on my heart, bleeding there, my chest open wide, my ribs broken and thrown into the pile of dirt.
Today I sing my favorite songs at my funeral — Iris, Where’s My Love, Between the Bars. But you can’t fight the tears that ain’t coming, and you can’t sing for the ones who were never meant to hear your songs. I open the coffin and take the dead body into my arms, gently rocking it and caressing the hair. I sing my mum’s lullaby and hope that nightmares and fears will pass. But somehow all the monsters are here — standing tall near the hole that is meant to be the cradle. And somehow they mourn with me, they hum the song. And somehow they are less frightening than the ones who were meant to be there to comfort, to care.
So the only reason I lay her back into the coffin, kiss her cold forehead, and close the lid over her white face is that I knew how tired she was. So rest in peace.
- Funeral Of Self - April 23, 2026
- Of Rice and Women - September 3, 2025
