The nights still hold her ghost
I lost myself in loving her
too deep too raw
Now I’m just fragments
a voice a laugh
the way she said my name
I ache to see her once more
not to rewrite the past but to remember
*who I was*
when she loved me
Maybe in her eyes I’ll find the pieces I left behind
Or maybe…
the healing starts when I stop chasing her
light and become my own,

-

You carved your soul into her shadow
Forgetting her meant erasing parts of *you*
the one who loved wildly recklessly fully
Yes you’re lost But what if the ache isn’t a cage?
What if her ghost holds a mirror to the self you abandoned?
Maybe healing isn’t in finding her
but in gathering the scattered pieces she left behind
*You’re still there*
Breathe Begin

-

What the Rain Knows

This room shrinks by the hour
My breath etches itself on glass
ghost-pale dissolving
I’ve forgotten how to name
the ache in my bones

Outside rain stitches the sky to earth
relentless unasked for
I watch it blur the world into gray
a watercolor left in the sink

But here silence swells
Time clots in my throat
I count the cracks in the plaster
trace the path of a single drop
sliding down the pane
how it holds on
how it lets go

-

It Wasn’t a Dream

It wasn’t a dream to be with you—
dreams are soft they fade like dew
This was a prayer raw and true
a cry from my heart reaching for you

I didn’t just wish I begged I pleaded
knees on the ground my soul felt heated
I built a hope fragile and small
that you’d hear my voice that you’d catch my fall

Dreams are kind they let you rest
but prayers are storms they break your chest
I held your name like a sacred song
even when the nights felt too long

It wasn’t a dream—it was something more
a fire inside a relentless war
For dreams just fade but prayers stay
even when the light turns to gray

-

Come home
Before my voice becomes the hum of a dead river
before the mountains shrug off their snow
and leave my bones bare as winter branches
Kashmir’s nights are long but your absence is longer
a road even the stars refuse to walk

-

They say Lal Chowk’s clocks still whisper Lies
Their hands broke the day you left
and time now is just a beggar counting my breaths
selling my pulse for coins of frost

Return
Before the mountains mistake me for one of their own
a cliff eroded by rain a landslide of unsung ballads
Kashmir’s sky weeps in my bones
but only your shadow can wring the storm from my blood

-

Eyes of Jhelum

Come back
My eyes ache from staring at the road you left
Jhelum’s waves keep flowing but not toward me
Every dusk I count the boats on Dal Lake
but none carry your shadow

The houseboats creak heavy with silence
Even the samovar’s steam feels thin
like the promises you scattered in the wind
I boil tea for two drink it alone

Kashmir’s snow melts into rivers I can’t cry
my hands grow numb clutching the shawl you forgot
The almond trees bloom then wilt season after season
while my prayers pile up like unread letters

Come back
Before your face fades from the mountains’ edge
before my voice becomes another echo in the valley
The night here is long and my heart
a shikara lost in a lake with no shore

-

Empty Shores

The Jhelum doesn’t sing anymore—
it screams your name every night in the dark
Zabarwan’s shadow grows longer colder
and I sit here stitching my heart with broken threads
Your absence is Dal Lake in winter—
still frozen endless
Even the chinar leaves fall quietly
ashamed of their own loneliness
I walk the roads you once breathed
collecting echoes of your laughter
but the wind throws them back at me
sharp as shattered glass
They say "Wait"
But waiting is a knife twisting in my ribs.
The almond blossoms wilt season after season
and my hands forget the warmth of yours
Come back
Before I become the ghost Kashmir whispers about—
a love story buried under snow
with no footprints left to follow

-

Dreams Across the Distance

It was an icy winter morning and the chill seemed to seep into my soul.
Yet something stirred me from my bed before dawn—a dream of you
After two long years, I saw your face vivid and unchanged yet so different.
In my dream, you stood before me adorned in a white coat a symbol of everything you’d worked so tirelessly for.

You were radiant, more beautiful than I remembered your eyes brimming with purpose and joy.
I wasn’t prepared to see you not after all this time not after all the silences and unanswered questions between us.
Yet, there you were the same yet transformed—a dreamer who became what they dreamed of.

My heart swelled with pride and shattered in equal measure.
You had fulfilled your dreams but we were still separated by an invisible chasm.
I don’t know if I was happy to see you achieve everything or broken because we still couldn’t bridge the distance between us.

Even after waking the dream lingered leaving me lost in the bittersweet haze of love, longing, and an unspoken connection.
It’s strange how dreams can make the heart ache so deeply.

-

In the darkest hours of the night, I endured a nightmare that shook the very foundations of my existence.
The relentless onslaught of fears and terrors left me believing that my life was on the precipice of ending.
Alone, I confronted the abyss of despair.

Every shadow seemed to harbor a malevolent force and every sound amplified my dread.
I grappled with a primal fear that life as I knew it might be snatched away.
It was a harrowing journey through a desolate realm of my own mind.

But just when all hope seemed lost a profound sense of mercy descended not from the realm of imagination but from a higher power.
Allah's grace like a beacon in the abyss gave me another chance to live life. It was a reminder of the fragility of our existence and the infinite mercy that can pull us from the brink of darkness.

This experience left an indelible mark on my soul a testament to the preciousness of life and the boundless mercy that surrounds us

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