Sweet

Last night I felt you near, as near as my own skin;

With eyes that I’ve envisioned countless times in my dreams.

Underneath the moonlit sky you pranced around in glee;

In the place where you had left me – ages ago it seems. 

In the hour of my ruin, you offered me reprieve;

The answer that I’d longed for to cure this endless grief.

You smiled at me and gestured to put my mind at ease;

Your words had echoed louder than crashing waves at sea.

We sat for days and murmured, my wounded heart you healed;

Whose pieces I had gathered, whose fate once more was sealed.

Just then, a thought occurred to me, the thought I’d feared the most,

A notion which had lingered upon this sunbathed coast.

Of the woman that I fell for, that girl I used to know

Who said she loved another, the one who left me so.

Who kissed me for the first time as spring began to bloom

and sentenced me forevermore to rot inside this tomb.

She harboured me no ill will yet still I had to wonder

Why grace my flesh with her sweet touch and wake me from my slumber?

This girl who stands before me now whose name I cannot tell;

Who’s surely sent from up above to save me from this hell.

Is no more real than Cupid’s bow or tales of old man Will,

For now there’s nothing left inside with which this hole to fill.

At least to quell my seething wrath I’ve found somewhere to go,

A realm that’s far and lost in time with hills all lined with snow.

No clouds nor rain yet roaring thunder to drown my dying screams,

Where none may tread save you and I, deep inside my dreams.

By Abir Dipto 

*This was originally published in the ‘Tertangala: Heartbreak Issue’ (2024)