A Common Man's Love Story By Muhammad Nasrullah Khan

I’m a commoner
fighting the demons of bills, of food, of life.
My meager pension enough to buy
slippers and a jacket at a thrift store.
Once, I sought stars
Now
I hide behind a trashcan of dreams.
I am a statistic,
known only by my photo ID.
A bomb blasts and news channels read:
Another sixty or so,
dead.
Death pauses eating
but soon resumes her feast.
I am a number on her dining table.
I have no place for pride,
crawling for crumbs of life
with mangled hands.

Years ago
as I stepped through white moaning snow,
I met a pretty girl
taking shelter for a bus
like a freshly feathered bird
I snipped through white moaning snow.
Her hazel eyes flicked towards mine.
Snagged for a moment —
ice on a stove.
We loved in blessed silence
She, a promised paradise.
But pledges faded
like colors of rainbow:
purple, blue, yellow, and colors never seen.
I slept there for a while,
and awoke to wind’s sad song
birds mourning
cold reality tugging my naked dreams.

Many years later
We met again under that shelter
She with her children
Me with mine.
She held mortgage papers
I clutched my rent receipts
We did not speak
but smiled at how rotten fate
spread over our lives
a poor sketch of a tombstone —
cemetery hidden under cypress trees.
We lived between heaven and hell.
Where once, we jumped in a sea of life
and fell into commonness’ jaw.

Stuck in the panes of sky
I wait for God to open His door,
and reply to my hungry prayers.

Link: https://allpoetry.com/poem/16503782-A-Common-Mans-Love-Story-by-Muhammad-Nasrullah

Copyright © Muhammad Nasrullah Khan | Year Posted 2022

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