Grief as a war cry

They said grief is a chapel.
They demanded I sit with folded hands in silence,
to drown beneath the weight of sorrow
and let pain undo me.

But I won’t.
I tell you today—I won’t.
I refuse to cut my hair.
I will not wear black for you,
nor wrap myself in mourning shades,
nor drape this veil sewn by tradition’s trembling hands.

Hear me now.
Let others bow beneath this loss,
beneath the ache that breaks the soul of men.
Let them weep like hollow wells in the dark,
like widows robbed of all hope.
Let them lower their eyes,
and fold into whispers.
But I—
I am the fire,
and your name is lodged in my throat like a war cry.

I will not bury you in silence.
I will not bury you in defeat.
I defy this chapel,
and make it my battlefield.
Let no sorrow enclose me—
let no grief silence me.

I dare grief to look me in the eye,
just this once,
and see how long it stands.

For today, a hero has fallen—
and silence, he was not.
He was fire.
Riot.
Reckoning.
The crack of laughter in a dying year.

Now tell me—
why should his end be a whisper?

So let me chant.
Let me sing at the top of my voice.
Let me dance to the music
played by the memories clouding my sight.
Let me scream your name in thunder.

And if I must go mad,
then let it be in sound defiance—
not in silent defeat.

For grief may have entered me,
but I—
I am still the one writing this ending.