Audit of Life

A poem by Achuthan Panikath

Mon Mar 30 2026

They say you watch the premiere of life-
Where you grieve for things you left undone.
For the words to be had, for the love to be doled-
But the call gets cut before your goodbye.
They say you’re never ready to die.

When the airbags slapped against my face
I felt an eerie sense of calm.
I let go of the phone with the smile of my love
As the car like pancake flipped in air
A mere rider I sat and felt life’s drop.

That same sense of reinless jump –
When you first tell her “I love you true”
When you say ‘No’ to bosses cruel
When you leap with faith from cliffs up high
Till water hugs you back to life.

Though a hundred bottles of precious dreams
Shattered today across the road
A truth too simple stood quite tall
Had this been tomorrow, nothing would change-
I lived a life with head held high
Every laugh and tear by my right.
No scene replayed before my eyes
For no debt to life I owed this time.

I had no pending words to speak
For all I dared to say I’ve said.
I had no love locked deep away
For all I loved so knew it well.
Regrets were weights I never kept
My wings are made of feathered faults.
I did not close my eyes. Fear must wait.
For this lifetime I built to live by the light.
This lifetime I built to live unto light.

A nervous wreck I sit by the highway now
Sailing sirens to reality and back to paused time.
Every day a chapter worthy to be last
With a promise to live than die a promising life.
My premiere is cut; A chance to redial.
I think I just passed the audit of life.