Your hand
moved like silence
on my shoulder—
not asking,
not waiting.

The sheet
slid down
just enough
to forget its name.

Your breath
settled between
my ribs
and the window.

We didn’t speak.
The night
had already
been told.

The fan spun
above bare skin
and promises
no one made.

You traced a path
below my navel—
a sentence
you never said aloud
but I remembered
for days.

Later,
you left
without shoes.
Your steps
soft
as permission.

I lay there,
the sky warming,
your warmth
still turning
in the folds.

- THE END -

© 2025 June, Hasanur Rahman Shaikh.
All rights reserved.

Once I loved a flower so much
that instead of picking it,
I left it alone.

My eyes refused to watch her leave
So my tears came to blur my vision

How am I supposed to act like I don't care,
Like you didn't just leave a hole I'm my chest.

This sinking feeling that I'll never see you again
A stranger turned to a lover and back to a stranger

Your name still echoes in the sounds of June
Like an unfinished song under the moon

We laugh like lovers, touch like the breeze
And call it friendship, just to keep the peace

In the story of my life, you're the sweetest line
With a bond like ours, even time couldn't redefine.

And so ...
I write you in poems you'll never read
Loving you softly, with a heart that bleeds.

Love..
In a world filled with people in all different fonts, love is the most beautiful feeling. No matter your inner or outer form, your height or your size, whether you seek a simple life or an ambitious one—there will always be someone whose heart holds a place for you.

Love exists in many forms and feelings: a friend’s comforting embrace, a mother’s warm smile, a partner’s kiss. Everyone feels love in one of these ways. But romantic love is my downfall. I fall too quickly, and the feeling fades just as fast. It is genuine love—I know that. I can feel its warmth radiating through my body. But all it takes is a single misstep for that warmth to be swallowed by a dark chill.

I’m not blind to the fact that relationships and love are a fragile fruit—easily turned to a messy pulp if not handled with gentle hands. Yet even with that awareness, I still end up hurting those who hold me dear. Never by intention—but inevitably—I become their sorrow.

Relationships are an exchange of blood and bruises, healed only in each other’s arms. But I’m no longer willing to endure the pain of these new wounds. I am too covered in scars from those who came and went. I have been sought after, lusted for, used, and beaten. I am afraid—afraid I will never feel true love. Afraid I’ll be hurt again. Afraid my heart will once more be shattered. And if I am not the one broken—will I be the one who breaks them? That is nothing I could ever take joy in.

The love I long for is not the lust of today. I want to feel someone’s hands on my soul, not my body. To live in someone’s heart, not their bed. Still, there is one thought I hold close—a name carved into my heart forever. Never have I felt his eyes strip me bare. Never have I needed his forgiveness to be myself. If he were the ocean, I’d be a wave. If he were the wind, I’d be sea and shore.

How to describe the love I seek, or the love I find in him—there are no words. Only a faint beating in my heart. Even in the safe place that is his smile, fear seeks me out. If the day comes when I finally hold his heart, and my rough hands cause him sorrow, I will never forgive myself. How am I to ask him for trust when I cannot trust myself?

This fear slowly coils around my throat—like a thorned vine, digging into my skin until I can no longer breathe. A single phrase keeps spinning in my mind over and over again, and I am beside myself with terror at its meaning:

The abused becomes the abuser.

I love
I hate
I yearn
I ache

The pain
The chase
Eyes and ears and taste

The hands
That shake
Making love to my mistakes

Regret
Remorse
Embracing my own corpse

Change
Sorrow
Waiting for tomorrow

Paranoia
Trust
Drenched in pixie dust

Manic
Placid
The future's dipped in acid

Hope
Unrest
Bricks inside my chest

Friction
Freedom
Lies that I believe in

Tears
Laughter
Curate my own disaster

Chalk
Frost
Skin made up of moss

Tide
Concrete
Death before retreat

Time
Space
Stuffed inside a case

Fraud
Truth
The difference between the two

"I'm fine"
It's true
And if you actually knew
What could you even do?

Your goodbye didn’t come in words.
It came in colors-
Soft at first,then cruel.
Like a crayon box left in the sun,
Melted,twisted,
Still pretending to be whole.

There was a bleeding red in the way you first loved me-
Too much,too fast,
The kind of color that stains your fingers
Long after the page is gone.
I thought I was your favorite,
The one you'd never let dull.
But love can look a lot like fire
When you don't know it's burning you.

You drifted into quiet blue,
A shade that never speaks but always lingers.
It was the kind of sadness
You don't notice until the room feels colder.
Until your name stops sounding like home,
And starts echoing like distance.

I clung to your flickering yellow,
The last of your laughter,
The fake smiles you wore like stickers-
Easy to peel.
Never meant to stay on
But your warmth was borrowed,
And you gave it back before I was ready.

There was hope,once-
A trembling green we drew together,
When we still believed in growing things.
But even gardens wilt without hands to tend them.
And you let go so slowly
That I didn’t realize I was the only one still holding on.

Your silence came next-
Not cold,not loud-just...black.
The kind that seeps into the cracks,
That waits until you're alone to settle in your chest.
You didn't say goodbye.
You just stopped coloring with me.
And somehow, that hurt even more.

Now I sit with with this crayon box
That still smells like childhood and endings.
Picking through pieces you left behind.
The wrappers are torn,the tips all worn-
But I can't throw them away,
They remember you too well.

And maybe the worst part
Is I still sit with that crayon box in my lap,
Picking out the broken pieces,
Trying to draw you into a picture
That never finishes the same way.

Because even now,
With fingers stained and a heart worn thin,
I keep choosing the same colors-
The ones I loved the most,
The ones that hurt the deepest-
And I still press them to the page,
Knowing they'll break again.
But I color anyway.
Because that's how you taught me to say goodbye.

Life is a beautiful emotional symphony.
A tapestry of exquisitely arranged chords of truth,
melodies of blue.
All orchestrated and arranged in a stunning range of love,
and a lasting stanza, encompassing all that is unknown..
I hope your melody walks with you gracefully all your life.
May it softly serenade you when you believe all hope has vanished,
and offer you healing, always remaining by your side,
whispering to you endlessly, from dusk till dawn.

-Rhia Clay