Poems by Sumbul Nasim

Sumbul Nasim

Assistant Professor

Department of English

Triveni Devi Bhalotia College

Raniganj

West Bengal, India 

Hollowness 

The house is congested with emptiness

Ever since you left.

And I float in this emptiness 

Like a zombie.

There is no life after you,

Only breathing.

This house is my closest companion

Who totally feels my pain.

This house too loved you,

Was accustomed to your voice, your gruff laughter.

This house has been my co-mourner.

It loved you just as I loved you,

Just as I LOVE YOU.

You were the sun in my dark house.

You illumined it

You gave it a pulse.

I have seen this house happy and smiling

It too had fallen in love with you

Hopelessly.

Once in a while, a poem comes to me

To make sense of this thing called

‘Life-after-you.’

That’s all I have

To keep you alive;

To go on

In a life steeped in your absence. 

Separation

There is a limit to everything

But no limit to your memory inundating me.

Can’t you see I am tired of erasing you from myself?

But you! 

You run in my blood.

Everything starts with you and ends with you.

You are in everything.

Everything is you.

This absent presence

This non-existent existence

This dead alive love

This no-love love

This hateful love

It’s you and I.

This is the cord between us.

This cord, this thread, this separation, 

This is us.

Strange Us!

Weird is our love

Weird is our connection.

This ruptured connection,

Connected by separation,

Joined by the gulf.

Conversing in silence

Seeing with shut eyes.

We don’t talk these days

And yet we talk.

I hover in your empty room all the time

And you hover in my empty mind.

When were we really away from each other?

Did the separation really separate us?

Did the break-up really break something between us?

Separation, break-up—all these metaphysical concepts for crazy lovers like us!