I read four words today.

Just four.

But their weight
stills
me.

I bow my head and
turn them
in my hands.

What are you asking me?
What are you trying to tell me?
What do you see?

I fold the paper.

I close
my
eyes.

Just four words.

She’s married now.
Six months have passed.
Why did she do this to me?
Things like this happen—
But how and why?

We had plans,
Dreams stitched into whispered nights:
Someday,
We’d run.
We’d escape.
We’d belong to no one but each other.

I remember the day we did it—
Left it all behind.
She cried quietly,
Worried what my parents might do.
What if they hurt themselves in grief?
What if we had made a mistake too big to undo?

She called home.
Her father cried.
“Come back,” he said,
“Where are you?
Tell me where, and I’ll come get you.”

She broke.
I watched it happen.
Maybe she remembered childhood laughs,
The smell of home-cooked food,
The weight of old memories
Tugging her back.

So I took her home.
Even though my chest screamed
Don’t let go.

Then came her wedding.
She told me she didn’t want to do it.
I begged her not to go through with it.
I cried.
I said everything.
I want nothing else but her.

But her mind—
It was elsewhere.
Fixed.
Still.

And so she married.
While I lay in bed,
Tears soaking the pillow,
Wondering:
What did I do
To deserve this?

I loved you.
You married someone else.
All our plans—
Gone.
Most of the happiest days of my life
Were with you.

Reality is cruel.
Fate is cruel.
You were cruel.
And me—
I’m no better.
Maybe I’m just…
Empty.

Not even lonely.
Just hollow.
Void.
Unmoving.
Unreal.

I make promises I won’t keep.
I talk big dreams I won’t chase.
I say I’ll change—
Then stay the same.
Naive.
Pathetic.
Unfocused.
A wanderer with no real will to move.

Sometimes I ask for advice,
But I forget it in an hour.
I live in loops.
Wake up.
Pretend.
Sleep.
Repeat.

I say I want to change,
But what do I even want?
Do I want anything?
Do I even know?
No goals.
Just daydreams.

A fantasy:
A life with no purpose—
Just food,
Peace,
Movement.
Trains, buses, faces I’ll never see again.
New places.
New cultures.
No pressure,
Just air.
Just being.

But how?
Where will I find the foods to eat?
Who will give me a place to stay?
Dreams are just dreams.
Some turn real.
Most don’t.

Then fate shows up,
Smirking.
Punches you hard in the face.
“Wake up, my boy,” it says.
“Some things just aren’t meant to be.”

Like us.

I miss you.
I love you.
I want you.
I don’t want to be without you.

But I am.

And now—
I’m alone.
So alone.
And I don’t even know
If I care anymore.

I don’t worry about family.
About future.
About anything.
I am empty.

"Help me."
"Miss me."
"Love me."
"Tell me, why?"

Why did this happen to me?
I’ve done bad things.
I’ve also done good too.
So what did I do
To deserve this ending?

I don’t know.
I am clueless.
I am lost.

I am empty.
But I still breathe.
And maybe one day—
I’ll begin to fill myself.
Because in the end,
No one else will.

But for now
I am just empty.

- THE END -

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

I wrote four words today.
Just four.

I bleed my hours into them.
Each syllable
I
weigh.

Like lifting stones from a dry riverbed,
turning each
over
and
over,
until one feels just right
in my hand.

Carefully
carving,
studying
and playing
with each one:
  Which catches the light just right?
  Which plays well with the others?
  What are you trying to tell me?

But mostly,
I discard.

Four words.

All my labor for the day--
Just four words.

It was a good day.

Lust oozing from pores
Late night, during the day too
Must stop, search the soul

At the water's edge,
a discarded candy wrapper—
kiting upwards—flitting, flittering,
rising, rising,
falling, falling—
before dancing with the waves.

Waves lap their lullaby
along the shore,
then slip
back to the sea.
The shoreline breathing
with each wave's retreat,
this slow pulse
of land and sea.

In the distance
an orange sun melts—bleeding fire
into a waiting blue.
Minnows skip through the shallows—
sun and shade silvering the fish
in flashes.

A heron calls once.
Then silence,
as a lighthouse's white pulse
traces the rocky shore.

The candy wrapper brushes
against a figure,
a shape,
a shadow,
before floating away.

The figure turning—slowly, barely—
cradled in the rhythm of waves.
Gently pulled by the current,
softly pushed by the wind.

A seagull's feather falls—on pale skin.
Resting a moment.
Before cool water
washes it away.

Everything drifts…
bobbing,
bobbing,
slowly,
slowly,
out to the ocean.

And so it drifts—
this body,
this drowned man,
traveling slowly
to his new home.

I do not mourn.
I take what comes—
feather, plastic,
skin.

I wrap them in salt —
and silence

The man did not ask
but he drifts now
with the others—

The fish, the feathers, the gods.

I feel
nothing now.

But once—
the sun was fire,
the water cool.

Once…
I heard the wind.
I felt a feather.
I swam.

Once, I fell in love.

But now just this drifting,
this drifting,
away.