Shaheer!

[shaheershat]

What the day collects

Birthdays arrive without knocking,

a quiet calendar mark that widens into a room.

Time folds its chairs in a circle,

and presence takes many forms,

some visible, some learned by absence.

Voices gather the way light does at dusk,

not loud, not pleading to be noticed.

Certain silences know my name better than sound,

they stand close, steady,

asking for nothing, offering weight.

Those who remain bring warmth in ordinary gestures,

a glance held longer than required,

laughter that understands its own restraint.

Their nearness is not an announcement,

it is continuity breathing beside me.

Others arrive without footsteps,

yet the air adjusts when they do.

Memory sharpens, not to wound,

but to remind me where I was once shaped,

and why certain days feel deeper than dates.

This day becomes less a celebration,

more a convergence of paths intersecting.

Past and present refuse to stay apart,

they speak through me, briefly aligned,

before returning to their distances.

So I stand at the center, not counting years,

but acknowledging the gathering itself.

What endures is not the candle’s flame,

but the shared moment of recognition,

that I am made of many arrivals

[shaheershat]

You don’t meet a person in silence,

you meet them in collision.

In the way their patience fractures

when something refuses to bend,

in the way their voice shifts

when no one is watching closely enough to judge.

Time is a poor witness.

It records hours, not truths.

You can sit beside someone for years

and still only know the version

they rehearsed for daylight.

Character is not revealed by waiting,

it’s revealed by presence.

By proximity sharp enough

to scrape against their edges,

to feel where they are soft,

and where they pretend to be.

Everyone carries two currents,

not good and bad as opposites,

but as threads woven too tightly to separate.

A kindness that knows how to wound,

a cruelty that once learned how to protect.

And you only see it

when you stand close enough

to be affected by both.

There are moments, small, unannounced,

where a person forgets to perform.

A glance held too long,

a reaction too quick to filter,

a silence that says more

than anything spoken with care.

That’s where they exist.

Not in the long stretch of days,

but in the brief ruptures

where truth leaks through.

You won’t find someone

by measuring how long they stayed,

but by noticing

what they became

when staying was no longer easy.

Because in the end,

no one is only one thing,

and the real knowing

begins

the moment you stop expecting them to be.

[shaheershat]

What I prayed for came quietly,

not like thunder, not like light,

but like a door left half-open

in a house I used to call survival.

Peace arrived without asking

what I would trade for it.

It took the noise first,

the urgency, the sharp edges,

the ache that kept me moving.

Now the days lie still,

too still,

like water that forgets how to run.

I hear my own thoughts echo

in rooms that used to be crowded.

I thought silence would heal me,

but it only made me audible.

Every unfinished sentence,

every doubt I buried in motion,

stands up and speaks.

This calm has no mercy.

It doesn’t distract,

doesn’t argue,

doesn’t leave.

And somewhere in this softness,

I realise,

I wasn’t drowning before,

I was drifting.

Now I can see the shore,

and I don’t know if I want to reach it.

What I prayed for is here,

settled in my chest like winter air.

It doesn’t hurt

it just stays,

and staying

is its own kind of undoing.

[shaheershat]

What I prayed for came quietly,

not like thunder, not like light,

but like a door left half-open

in a house I used to call survival.

Peace arrived without asking

what I would trade for it.

It took the noise first,

the urgency, the sharp edges,

the ache that kept me moving.

Now the days lie still,

too still,

like water that forgets how to run.

I hear my own thoughts echo

in rooms that used to be crowded.

I thought silence would heal me,

but it only made me audible.

Every unfinished sentence,

every doubt I buried in motion,

stands up and speaks.

This calm has no mercy.

It doesn’t distract,

doesn’t argue,

doesn’t leave.

And somewhere in this softness,

I realise,

I wasn’t drowning before,

I was drifting.

Now I can see the shore,

and I don’t know if I want to reach it.

What I prayed for is here,

settled in my chest like winter air.

It doesn’t hurt

it just stays,

and staying

is its own kind of undoing.

[shaheershat]

(Suggest a name)

We spoke for a while

until the air between us

grew heavier than the words.

Silence sat with us

for a few minutes

like something neither of us

wanted to disturb.

Later, the conversation found its way back,

slowly

like a door opening

just enough for light.

You said

something in me had changed,

something good, you thought.

Night came quietly.

Before sleep could take the room,

you said sorry

without a reason,

like a leaf falling

without the wind explaining why.

I said it back.

Not because I knew the reason,

but because sometimes

two people feel the same weight

without naming it.

For a moment

I almost believed

in those strange ideas about timing

that people return

when the eyes are ready to see them again,

or leave

once their lesson is over.

I never decided

which one to believe.

The next day

everything went back

to the quiet distance

I already knew.

And sometimes

it feels like you arrive

only once in a while,

just long enough

to reopen a place

I spent so long

learning how to close.

[shaheershat]

I don’t have a song for you.

For others, yes.

A chorus that opens like an old wound,

a bridge that smells like late nights and unfinished sentences,

a single line that can undo me in traffic.

They each have something,

three minutes and thirty seconds

where memory rehearses itself perfectly.

Some of them left.

Some of them stayed.

But the music knows how to hold them,

wrap them in melody,

make them cinematic,

give them an ending even when life didn’t.

You!

you have no soundtrack.

I’ve tried to find one.

A song to pin you to.

But nothing fits.

Nothing captures the quiet way you exist in my days,

not as a flashback,

not as a lesson,

not as a scar.

Maybe that’s why.

Songs are for distances.

For people you have to visit through speakers.

For feelings that need help surviving.

You are not surviving in memory.

You are here,

in the ordinary miracle of now.

And maybe one day,

if silence ever grows where you stand,

a song will find you.

But for now,

you are not a melody I replay,

you are the air before music begins.

[shaheershat]

(SUGGEST ME A NAME)

Morning comes, but the room stays heavy.

Light touches the wall and turns away.

I breathe, yet each breath feels borrowed.

Time walks slow, dragging its feet.

Words sit in my mouth and refuse to leave.

A small ache hums under the skin.

It is not loud, just constant.

Like rain that never starts or stops.

Faces smile, and I practice the same.

Inside, a knot tightens without reason.

Sleep brings no rest, only pauses.

Memories knock when doors are closed.

I carry them quietly, like fragile glass.

Even joy feels thin and distant.

The heart learns new weights each day.

I learn how to stand with them.

Some days I almost forget the pressure.

Then a thought slips and pulls me under.

Still, I tie my shoes and step out.

Still, I answer when my name is called.

There is strength in moving anyway.

There is courage in staying soft.

This hurt does not own my voice.

I am more than what bends me.

I walk on, slower, but awake.

[shaheershat]

If I Could Still

Whenever I look back

Memories flicker like stars in black

Your laughter, your eyes

The warmth that time denies

I think of reaching out

But silence wraps my doubt

What if the us I seek

Is lost in days I can't repeat

What if I'm the one who breaks

Living with all these silent aches

You've moved ahead, you live, you breathe

While I still wear you near my heart beneath

Each thought of you, a fading spark

A voice that whispers in the dark

I want to reach but if I do

It might just shatter what we knew

Between the echoes and the years

I learned the weight of quiet fears

Some loves survive by staying still

By choosing absence over will

We can't go back, the past is done

But oh, how bright that moonlight shone

A glow we shared in night's embrace

A love time couldn't quite replace

So let me hold it in my chest

Not to disturb your peace, your rest

For even if we drift apart

You're moonlight burning in my heart

[shaheershat]

The quiet after.

She didn't leave with a storm.

There was no fight, no final word,

just a quiet vanishing,

like breath fading on a mirror.

I didn't know that silence could echo louder than goodbye.

She was everything once,

the center of my chaos,

the calm in my storms.

And when she left, she took more than herself.

She took the part of me

that only existed with her.

Now I walk through days

wearing her memory like a scar,

visible only when the light hits right.

I talk to shadows,

replay the same scenes

in the theatre of my mind,

where she always walks out

before the credits roll.

It's not just her I miss.

It's the me I was when she loved me,

the version of myself

that laughed easier,

slept deeper,

believed longer.

So I bury her in distractions,

shovel time over her name.

But grief is patient,

it waits until I'm alone

and then whispers her back.

She's gone,

but everything she touched

still breathes in me.

And maybe I don't need to forget her.

Maybe I just need to remember

that I can carry the love

without carrying the weight.

[shaheershat]

The Rain That Stayed

The rain that fell on our way to school,

Soft and gentle, fresh and cool.

The rain when friends walked side by side,

With laughter, stories, and hearts open wide.

The rain beneath one umbrella's shade,

Where silent dreams and whispers stayed.

The rain when children danced in glee,

Splashing in puddles, wild and free.

The rain that brought the earth its scent,

A fleeting gift, a moment lent.

The rain that healed, the rain that broke,

The rain where fate in silence spoke.

The rain of joy, the rain of sorrow,

Echoing past, shaping tomorrow.

A thousand tales in drops so small,

The rain-forever touching all.

[shaheershat]

Growing Within.

As I walk along this quiet lane,

I feel the moon, I feel the rain.

A year has passed, I've grown so much,

Yet shadows whisper with their touch.

The past, a ghost I cannot sway,

Regrets I wish would fade away.

Though time moves on, the scars remain,

A silent echo of old pain.

But every step, both near and far,

Reminds me who and what we are.

The nights I cried, the dreams that died,

The hopes I lost, the times I tried.

Each broken piece, each silent tear,

Has shaped the person standing here.

For every wound, a lesson learned,

A spark of strength the fire burned.

And though regrets still softly call,

I listen, I grow.

[shaheershat]

Poem | Between two first days.

From the first morning of last year

to this evening that stands quietly in 2026,

I learned how much can remain unsaid

without ever truly disappearing.

Some decisions arrived like instincts,

others like negotiations with fear.

I chose well more often than I admit,

and poorly in ways that taught me endurance

rather than regret.

There were nights loud with distraction,

rooms filled with voices and screens,

and nights so silent they felt deliberate,

as if the dark itself wanted an answer.

I carried expectations that were not mine,

placed trust where it was convenient,

withdrew it where it was deserved.

I misjudged people, then misjudged myself,

and eventually learned the difference

between disappointment and clarity.

I watched happiness perform itself online,

smiles curated, lives edited into certainty,

while real joy arrived unannounced,

brief, unrecorded, and honest.

There were days that justified the effort,

and days that asked nothing but survival.

There were moments when death felt like a concept,

and others when it felt like a question,

not invited, but present.

Now, on this first evening of 2026,

I do not ask for a clean beginning.

I ask only for continuity,

to move forward without pretending

that I am untouched by what came before.