Whispers to the Unreachable

Nicholas Khundrakpam *

O life, you strange and silent pilgrim, drifting through unseen doors,
You call a thousand hearts to shore, then leave them wrecked upon the waves.
Each smile a ghost of joy, each voice a wind that wanes in sorrow.
Yet one abides; her gaze the morning light that knows no deceit.

I saw her stand between the night’s farewell and morning’s breath.
And felt the soul remember something lost before it was born.
Silence binds my lips, for speech might bruise this sacred calm.
If called by name, love might wither as the stars before her light.

Your breath of hills and shadowed vales, bear my longing unconfessed.
O tears of dark, whisper to her hearth what my stillness meant.
For her eyes did bind my soul; my solace, my sorrow, and my sin.
A truth too vast for mortal speech, yet it whisper all I am within.

Poet's Note:

This poem speaks about life as a long, quiet journey filled with many people and moments that come and go. Most of them fade away like waves returning to the sea. But among them, the poet meets someone who feels different, her eyes are like the morning light, pure and true. She awakens something deep inside him, a feeling that feels both heavenly and painful.

He loves her silently, afraid that speaking might break the beauty of what he feels or causes her to disappear. So, he lets the wind and the night carry his unspoken love to her. Her presence becomes his comfort, his sadness, and his destiny. It is a love too deep for words, one that lives in silence, in every breath, and in the quiet ache of his heart.