Shadow

By Purti Sharma

You stand there, in casual air,

I want to name it indifference,

But I know, you’re unknown.

You stand beneath a lamppost,

As golden as your heart,

With your face turned away,

Only your shadow on the wall.

I stand right behind you,

But you do not seem to care,

So I take whatever you give me,

Unconsciously so.

I walk close to the wall

And smile at the charcoal stretch of your body,

Tracing my finger on its outline,

The only way I can touch you.

I try to ruffle your hair

But they stay where they are,

Stuck to the brick with no texture, I realize,

Your shadow is as indifferent as you.

Even so, I wrap my arms around,

Catching nothing of you and everything of the oxygen suffocating me.

The black of your shadow is nothing compared to your shiny halo,

But I am content, at least I can stand near you in this dark space,

While you refuse to accept me in the world of light.

I press my forehead into the stone,

Hoping to feel anew,

While a thought whirls in my head,

“I have your gloom at least, no matter if I can’t have you.”

Just then, the illumination begins to flicker,

My fate guffawing a treacherous laugh

And your imprint wipes off the wall for a second, before reappearing,

Looks like a waging war between my wants and my destiny.

But as you come back to life

In the wondrous world of silhouettes,

I hastily step back, entering the sphere myself,

And with caution and delicate motion,

Line me right in front of you, enveloped by your dark embrace.

Only you left, none of me,

As our bodies merge into one, united in such a scared symphony.

I feel divine to ponder that you have

A casket to hold me, caress me so.

Then arrives the ultimatum, when the bulb lamp dims my fortune

Permanently, villainously,

So now there is no you and no me

In this paradise of a red screen

Which appears devilish now, as black as Satan.

So does everything else around me,

Engulfed by the shadows, it seems,

Cast by the reasons I cannot call you mine.

Now my sidestep is caught, my mischief acknowledged

As I tried to escape the unfairness of life

Driven by need, by hunger

See where it got me

On a stranded road, from where you have long departed.

As if to tease me, the lamp lights once more,

And I see you walking away

Nearing the edge of oblivion,

Your shadow following you.

While I stretch my arm and fail,

To hold you back on the planet of expressionless coal.

By Purti Sharma