When he saw her last

The sunny day, the heat, the sweat

I lingered somehow to college in tracks

The first bench was my best friend alone

That tree in the college garden my bolster

In these hot summers I laid in its shade

It reminded of my mother’s lap

It reminded of my father’s hand

When he would keep it on my shoulder

Telling the ways of life and men

They died last year.

Another day, same faces

I was used to of my routine enough

The first bench, the break and my tree

The scribbling with my pen on paper

As I occupied my seat

I smelled a fragrance

A sudden air went across my face

It was as I stood amidst a valley

Full of flowers and hues of grace

I looked at my side

She sat there.

Those eyes were bigger than an infant’s

They carried a tinge of brown

Every time those curled lashes shut

It seemed the world came to an end

Her curly locks fell above her waist

They were darker than the darkest night

That kohl lined up her eyes a way

That swayed many stories from her life

As she looked at me and said that ‘Hello’

Those little pink lips moved in the most delicate way

That nose on her face, how I wished I could touch

Every boy yearned for her and girls stood in dismay

She was the wish I would ask God for

The lost light of my life I yearned

She was the girl I would have taken to Mom & Dad

Had they been here to bless their young son

I wrote her a letter to tell her how I felt

Ninety sleepless nights and days

I pictured us together in my growing

I was sure my love would find its way

As I entered the next day

Waiting with batted breathe

She came up to me

My hand she held

Torn pieces of my letter

She handed over and said

“Get lost from here

You scrap you loser”

And those classmates mocked

But I didn’t regret

She was the only wish I beheld

This was the piece he wrote the last

Nobody knew where he went

With her picture in his heart

And with his unfulfilled love

He never returned to that land

After many a years

When she was the mother of two

Everybody reunited and celebrated old days

She was as breath-taking

As she ever was

She only got beautiful with her age

She asked for him to a few

Nobody ever knew where he was

She rushed back home

Opened a letter from him she long possessed

But never cared to read before

She didn’t need it

Everything in life she has always had

She read it and crashed into the floor

He had died that day

For only death could pacify

His unfulfilled love

His desire for her, for his life

She lamented, she cried

She clutched her hair, tore her dress apart

His last words were,

“You were my only wish,

The one I wanted to see the last”

And so he chose the day

He saw her the last.

Plot courtesy: Neha Choudhry, Her blog (beautiful collection of poems) : Let Life Breathe...