Shayan Afzal

Dear Leonard Cohen,

Standing outside your door, I felt the weight of your absence like a familiar ache—steady, quiet, and unyielding. You had a way of reaching into parts of me I didn’t even know were there, offering an understanding that made me feel seen, even in my most hidden places. In your words, in your voice, I found a language for my struggles, my hopes, and all the quiet doubts I carry. You showed me that to be human is to embrace the contradictions of joy and sorrow, of faith and despair, and to do it with grace.

You gave me more than songs or poems; you gave a part of yourself, and through that gift, you taught me to hold myself with a little more compassion, a little more understanding. Your work is a lifeline, a reminder that even the darkest hours are worth bearing if I can find something true in them. You don’t soften the truth, but you make it bearable, showing me that my wounds and triumphs are equally worthy of song.

Outside the place you once called home, there’s a strange comfort, as if some part of you is still here, watching over those of us who found pieces of ourselves in your words. Your presence, your honesty, lingers in the air, quiet and powerful. You taught me to see life clearly, to accept its rough edges, and somehow still find beauty in it.

Thank you for sharing that truth, for revealing what most of us keep hidden. I carry it now, quietly—an ember I won’t let fade. Somehow, you made the world feel a little less lonely, as if even its roughest edges held a strange, honest beauty. I am grateful, more than words can say, to have seen the world, even for a moment, as you did.

Yours, in the silence between words,
Shayan