your shadow

My shadow touches the wind around us and
cuts my soul to place it in your arms.
Sometimes I draw myself as a stilted stick
figure with my hands on my head. Sometimes
I let the simplicity of it remove my shadow
from your gaze. People paint with their hearts
and try to make it a song of love. I let my
shadow fall into yours and mix together, black
ink on black ink against the night sky create
warmth likening to a forehead kiss. I am grief
and I am love. These two try to coalesce and
wander around us, they become the wind that
cut me. It’s been a few minutes and all you’ve
done is look at me and all I’ve done is look at
you looking. It’s been years and we are still
here, placing our grief and love on our
shadows that never lost touch. No one gets up
to find their shoes and walk away. This is the
only way for me to tell you I am here.

Syed Raian Abedin is an avid learner in all things pertaining to art and literature. He is one of the founders as well as an Editor-in-Chief of Kitchen Sink: A Literary Journal, the first online journal in Bangladesh dedicated entirely to poetry.