Superimposition of Us

By Ramsha Naushad

You,

silent not from absence,

but from care

a still frequency waiting for the right collapse.

I,

forever on the verge of call or doorstep,

writing and un-writing,

a wave packet oscillating between say it now

and let it be.

The city knew only

the independent version of me

built from Jharkhand soil,

Azaan blooming in my breath,

Shiva’s hum in my marrow,

and a girl who once hid her dances

because walls could echo

with shame louder than applause.

We met

after I had broken and mended

five times over

a lattice scar with light still inside.

I recognised you before I understood you,

trusted before I knew how to tend.

When you left,

I buried your gifts in the Earth,

a ritual of surrender

matter becoming prayer,

prayer becoming field.

From ISKCON to the gurudwara,

Matrimandir to Bodh Gaya,

namaz to silence,

I sent you photons of blessing,

non-local, unmeasured,

carrying the equation:

"Let him be well, let him be whole."

“Let me be well, let me be well”

Meanwhile my own orbit

wobbled

family storms,

the gravity of middle-class duty,

the fragile reactor of health.

I learned to retreat,

to hold still until particles realign.

You never knew

that cooking came to me like an ancient code

only when you entered my field.

That my clothes, my laughter,

my daring to stand in sunlight

were all small rebellions

because you might see.

One evening in the stadium,

your absence met me in the shape of a question.

I answered with something light,

but inside

it was the sound of a star imploding quietly.

Now,

I hold you in the superposition of smile and ache,

in the journal’s spine,

in the God who sees the code we wrote together.

We are each the other’s family,

folded into different houses,

running parallel experiments in being.

If the equation resolves,

we’ll meet where the timelines braid.

If not

then know,

I was your distant particle,

always entangled,

always sending you home.

By Ramsha Naushad