Can`t Share

By Alifiya Hanif

Happiness in love, was the subject today,

In all the mails I’d wrote and would,

Of diligence, success, joy and loss,

I was sure how to begin and end,

Today I just stared ahead, holding onto the pen.

With hours that flew, with conjectures I wrote and slashed,

Of told tales and an unheeded virgin muse,

There were a thousand thoughts to share,

But my horizon ended with just a few words to spare.

Clung to my grit, the fury of holding onto an insistent tale of truth,

Silence gave away, the shame words had masked to forsake.

Happiness felt and assured by the touch, of how fingers slid through flesh,

It lasted a little while but the memory still lulls and haunts me at night.

Happiness was supposed to be this, my heart had smiled,

Now thinking of it my face is lined with tears refusing to dry.

What could I say, what makes you happy will make you cry,

It is a wheel, running on a frictionless soil.

Will it make you hopeful, wishing for glee,

When I tell you the nightmares still don’t let me sleep.

I could teach you all but I ought to withdraw,

A few lessons are a part of life’s chores.

Till then my friend,

I’ll just hold onto my pen, I’ll let the ink dry rather than doing the sin,

Of alerting you that the blow will come right at your chin,

Leaving you breathless,

Clenching your fists till the nails bite into the skin.

It costs more than blood,

It’s a story of dread.

It’s a story of a path most difficult to tread.

By Alifiya Hanif