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IF ONLY!
Alone, yes all alone,
With nobody but God
To be with me as always.
Night laughs mockingly
At me and my loneliness.
You were there once upon a time
Now even you have become a chime
That keeps ringing from far away.
Songs and music and my faithful sadness
Are my company in these stretching hours
Almost every night after the sun sets.
You keep yourself preoccupied
Or is your own lifestyle that is doing it
I wonder...
You came just like a whiff of wind
As if fulfilling a responsibility
Which you thought you must
And I silently saw
How you have adapted yourself
To the schedules of what you have made more important
Than a day with a friend who waited for you
For more than two years...
Clouds play with the full moon
And stillness pervades outside
This wounded and bleeding heart of mine.
Ah, why complain?
Is it of any use now?
I have made a quiet pact with my fate
Which you too cannot unravel
For you have really gone very far away...
And I no longer matter that much anymore
Why would I
When you have a loving wife and a family
And a steady job that keeps you moving on
Blending your spiritual self with materialistic joys...
It is as if I am not at all there
In your present way of life and living....
You help me, whenever I reach out to you
That I cannot every deny
And whatever you have done
In your own style of helping me
I must be always grateful for that
To you and God Almighty...
It is a cold world within and without
And this solitary man finds little warmth
As the minutes and hours keep passing
Towards another clammy day....
I do thank you yet one more time
For all that you have done for me
And are still doing
In a responsible sort of way...
This has become your lifestyle
Anyway my dear old friend
I apologize if I have disturbed you
With an unfolding of a forgotten page
From the book of friendship that marks us
For more than 35 years...
Ah, how time flies!
It all seems like yesterday
When we spent so much time
With each other
Revelling in our dreams
And imagination
Of how much closer we two would be
In the days that lay ahead of us...
It is strange indeed
To be an idealist --- as I indeed am...
However old times flash like lights
That refuse to be switched off
From the damp and lonely heart of mine
I do miss you
And so perhaps you might find a way
To forgive me -- generous as you are --
For this appealing like complaint
That made me write thus to you....
O my ever trusted friend
If only you can fathom
How much I miss you
And how greater the misery is
Ever since you went away
With hardly an hour shared with me
Just with me...like in those days
When nothing else mattered more
Than our times of tears and laughter
Joys and sorrows
Secrets and revelations...
Let the scathing lash of loneliness
Keep whipping my being
This scourge of loneliness
Has become an awaited guest
That comes every night after dusk
And keeps slowly draining me
Of all that I hoped
Perhaps that's how it is meant to be
And I must satisfy my punishing guest
By spending time with it
All alone
As the cackling laughter of night-birds
Joins the sadistic night time
To make me melt away
Into oblivion slowly and yet quite steadily
Till I become just a memory
To you along with all those
Who care not a whit about my loneliness.
My beloved is also facing the same
Kind of life and her loss of job
Is another stab which I must bear
More hurt than ever before
For her than for my own sake...
Ah, that spring is not awaited now
Like I dreamed it would for all these years...
You are quite busy
And I envy you not
For that is just not me...
I wish you the very best
Now and in the days to come
Now let me be with my whip lashing guest
And bear what has been written down for me
By the scribes of God Almighty....
Adieu my friend
I feel I must stop now
Instead of revealing more
Of how wounded I really am
Inside and out
Perhaps this is how I must live
The mocked idealist -- like I have been
If only you could give me solace
With a word or two like you used to
In the times gone by...
If only....
Now let me be scourged and fall down
Unwillingly and all alone
In the lap of unfulfilled dreams
That come once my eyes close
And shut themselves for the break
Which you and the world define as sleep....
(Written for my best friend Shazi -- Shehzad Latif-- on February 17, 2011).
--Muhammad Naveed Ahmed/Emmenay.
