Next Time, Tell Me

There's no other way but to go numb.
But then the excruciating job is to make oneself un-numb.

How does one do that?

You have to be un-numb.

Otherwise, how can one write, dream, hope and hug the loved ones,
whoever they might be!

How does one make them go un-numb?

If I could find someone in my vicinity,
who also dreams up colours of emotions on a blank wall, I would ask that.

But obviously, I don't find them.

Without telling me, they went extinct.

Without telling me, they went for a walk and never came back.

Without telling me, they ended up in a ditch somewhere.

Without telling me, they died last night, last month, last year.

Without telling me, they are crying holding the dead crows of the sky.

Without telling me, they are typing down words of love
that are pretty unsellable
in this current economy.

Without telling me, they are closing their eyes trying to sleep,
tired of loving the wrong ones.

Without telling me, they wake up in the morning,
eyelids heavy with nightmares and nostalgia for things that never were.

Without telling me, they are crossing the overbridges, unloved.

Without telling me, they are on a park bench in the rain, unloved.

Without telling me, they are standing in the middle of the high noon traffic, unloved.

Without telling me, they are in adda with people talking over each other, unloved.

Without telling me,
they are drunk, sober, stoned, abstinent, agitated, calm, chaotic, euphoric.

Without telling me, they expired.

So, I'm in a cult of one.

Here.

Where, now, fascists are fighting for freedom.

Sumaya Mashrufa is a writer and poet based in Dhaka.