She Danced in My Funeral

Written from the soul of the dead

I was dead.

Truly dead.

I only realized it when I saw my own body lying in the casket, motionless, surrounded by flowers that smelled too sweet for something so tragic. People came, offered their condolences, cried a little… and left.

But then—she arrived.

A woman in a flowing white dress. Barefoot. Her eyes strange, distant, burning with a story no one else seemed to know.

And she… she began to dance.

Yes, dance. At my funeral.

No music played. No rhythm guided her steps. Yet every movement carried a heartbeat, every twirl echoed like thunder through the silence of mourning. People gasped. Some whispered, some protested.

"Who is this insane woman?"

"How dare she dance here?"

But no one stopped her.

No one could.

She danced as if she had every right. As if she owned the air around my coffin. As if she had come to finish something left undone.

I didn’t know her. At least, I thought I didn’t.

No memory surfaced, no name, no face from my past matched hers. But as she moved, something stirred inside me — a strange guilt, a forgotten longing.

She bent down once, close to my lifeless face. She smiled.

And then she whispered something.

Not with her lips, but with her eyes.

It said:

“You locked life away. So I came to unlock your death.”

When my body was lifted for burial, she didn’t follow. She just stood still… watching, like a ritual had been completed.

Everyone left her behind, calling her mad. But my story didn’t end there.

After death, I expected peace. Or judgment. Maybe even light.

But I was stuck.

Not in heaven, not in hell —

Just… caught between.

Then she returned.

The same woman, but not dancing anymore. She floated toward me like a forgotten melody returning in the wind.

"Do you remember me now?" she asked.

"No," I replied.

She smiled again, but this time, it was sad.

"I am the promise you never kept.

The prayer you were too afraid to whisper.

I am the life you ran from.

The love you buried under fear."

I trembled. She lifted her hand and pointed behind me.

And I remembered.

That rainy night.

That girl I saw crying in the street.

She had looked at me, soaking, helpless.

I turned away. I walked past.

Too busy. Too scared. Too selfish.

"That was me," she said.

"If you'd stopped that night, your life would’ve changed.

You would’ve found joy, freedom, even love.

But you chose silence.

So I danced in your funeral, to wake you from your death."

Now I’m awake — but not alive.

I exist in a space where regret echoes louder than screams.

Where every moment I denied her replays in slow motion.

And she?

She’s gone.

Maybe dancing in someone else’s funeral now —

Someone else who thought they had time.

But me?

I dance alone now.

Every night, in the shadows of my own forgotten chances.

With the memory of the woman who danced,

not to mourn me…

…but to remind me of the life I refused to live.