This “Apology Letter” is addressed to all those suffering due to wars around the world today. In the grand scheme of things, this letter cannot change anything. But even if one person comes across it and finds a moment of relief and kindness, it will make the author of this piece happy.

I am sorry.

I am sorry you have to wake up one morning and watch your lover turn into dust. 

I am sorry my arms of empathy cannot reach far enough to come and save you. I am sorry that I can only sit here and write you an apology letter on behalf of all of us who are watching you, and your lives getting ripped apart.

I am sorry my hands are tied and my legs cannot move.

I am sorry they turned your home into their playground.

I am sorry for your traumatic childhood and your abusive relationship that must seem meaningless now. I am sorry that every struggle you have ever had to go through now looks like something you’d willingly choose over this day, over this moment.

I am sorry that we don’t realise how wars don’t just end lives. It’s the dreams that you saw, it’s the children that you raised, it’s the love that you nurtured, it’s the homes that you built, the money you saved, the future you wanted.

I am sorry that we keep failing each other, over and over again. I am sorry your voices are not being heard. That machine guns have become your alarms. Caution tapes fill up the road. There’s a traffic of dead bodies.

I am sorry you prayed to God and begged for mercy till your knees bled. I am sorry God did not ask you for forgiveness.

I am sorry I asked you to pause and take three long breaths.

I almost forgot that this morning you woke up on a battlefield and the air smelled of death. I almost forgot your sunrise tasted like smoke and your rainbows had the colors of a missile.

I hope your epitaph reads that you deserved to live, and we killed you.

If you liked this, you can also read other pieces by Saheen here and here

Saheen Rahman

Saheen is a writer and a communication student currently pursuing her postgraduate
degree. She finds beauty in monotony and run-of-the-mill things. She wants her work to be a voice of rebellion, a sword for change, a lifeboat to save someone else from drowning. She strongly believes that art exists in everything, big and small and that we only need the unavoidable and insatiable hunger to find it. Her work has been previously published in The Alipore Post, Terribly Tiny Tales, Live Wire and Indian Sahitya Akademi.