Words After Departure
People depart through trains and cars and you are rend with loneliness after they are gone. Your departure imparted me with with a sullen longing. A crater of mixed emotions fell on my chest after the happy meeting was over. Dark signs like tendrils of roots begun to grow. The former state of happiness collapsed in the rearview mirror. The body is a new direction, now. I touch the glass surface of present with an unusual stance posed as questions, ‘who grows here, in this new arrangement?’ ‘Will I last the afternoon with my shadow distended due to so much longing?’ The ground is drunk on the fragrance of flowers in the riotous spring. I tie my shoelaces before going on a run. The symmetry of numerals and their internal logic commands so much respect and authority in human imagination. But words and their meaning, in essence language, is taken for granted. Thunder flashes and I must go inside to hide under the noisy newspaper sheets, their headlines screaming of the confrontation between empires. I lie in a confused silence counting the moments to rain.
Hasham Khalid is a poet from Karachi, Pakistan. He has studied analytical philosophy at Bristol University, U.K. He dropped out in the third year of his studies. In his poetry he tries to examine the relationship between thought and experience by invoking the philosophical behind the ordinary. His poetry is not restricted to a particular style. You can find him quietly hanging out with great scholars and extraordinary poets on instagram @shashamkhalid.