Songs in Silence

Poet: Muhammad Nasrullah Khan

My Love is Like a Songbird

As the blood runs through the body, my love goes deep in veins of time. I will carry your love in poems, my heart inked with every word.

My love for you is like a songbird landing on the thrum of a heartbeat — soft, steady, endless. 2 | Page

You’re music, the quiet note that fills the air, a rhythm I live by, the melody that stays.

But there’s a sadness in the songbird’s tune, a trembling voice that sings as though finding love in cold places — his song echoing in the stillness where warmth is lost.

He searches, wings dusted in frost, for a love buried under snow, far away, beyond the reach of his small, fragile body. Yet he sings, because it’s all he knows, because love, even in the cold, still pulses, still calls.

And I, like him, will sing for you, even if your love, sleeps beneath frozen ground, 3 | Page

still, hearing your music beneath my skin.

An Offering of Love

All I’m offering is my heart, my poems, my songs, a sunset, a blue sky stretched wide as hope, the deep, breathing rainforests of Canada — red cedar, western hemlock, the crest of four-thousand-foot mountains wrapped in mist.

Take the awe of South Georgia Island, where glaciers meet the sea in white whispers, and Machu Picchu, where old souls walk ancient streets under the weight of memory, stone by stone.

I’ll lay before you the sweeping dance of Sandhill Cranes, their wings cutting across the dawn, the shimmering veil of Northern Lights, the quiet hum of the Sea of Cortez at dusk.

All this — for one chance, for just one fleeting moment, a smile on your lips, 5 | Page

a spark in your eyes that says you see it, too.

All this — and if you should take it, if you should meet me in that spark, then let the world fall away, for in that single, quiet moment I’d trade a thousand sunrises, a million mountain peaks, and every endless sky — just to hold you close, to know you’re mine and I am yours, in the soft and lasting light of one true smile.

You Left a Rose Behind

You left a flower behind, forgotten in my room, and though years have gone by, it’s still here, silent, waiting, its petals are brittle as breath, holding tight to the weight of your love.

I cannot let it go. Not yet.

I’ll keep it, until it turns to dust in my hands, until the last trace of its being is gone, and when it fades, when it finally dies —

I’ll open my hands, let it sigh into the air, hoping somehow, in that release, my own soul drifts to find that part of us, lost somewhere, still waiting.

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The Silence of God

I see the missiles, sleek and precise, dropping like punctuation in a sentence we never wanted to finish. Innocent children vanish; crying mothers remain, their voices slicing through the sky, leaving scars no one will see.

And God — God speaks again in a language I don’t understand, an accent so thick with silence it could be from anywhere.

I don’t know; I’m just a petty thief, lifting small weights of pain from a land that’s breaking.

My body is too thin, too frail to rise above and search the sky for the meaning of this divine tongue.

Instead, I tread this aching earth, step by step, mile by mile, 8 | Page

in shoes worn down from looking for a translation

I fear I’ll never find.

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I’ll Send You a Cold Kiss

The last night of summer drifts into silence, snow waits, sharpening its claws, and I watch the quiet sky, knowing, the chill is coming, heavy and still.

Soon, I’ll hear the leaves, their dying murmurs scrape the pavement, clinging to life beneath the rusted bins — their cries swallowed by silence, their last breaths engulfed by the winter’s hands.

Alone, I’ll walk through the burned-out city, its streets scorched not by fire but by cold, and something deep inside will ignite, a flame only I know, how the cold can sear like heat, how it leaves a scar that never shows.

I’ll send you a cold kiss, a frost-born breath, that dies the moment it touches air, fading, like all else, into the silence.

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Abandoned by Your Songs

Time slips by, and my love has aged in silence, a frail bloom yearning for the soft touch of dawn. Once, our dreams merged, painting sunsets wide and wild, a bright canvas stretched across the evening sky. But those colors now sink into gray, their glow fading into the shadows of yesterday.

My piano keys, once alive under my hands, now sigh under fingers grown heavy with ache. They bear the weight of worn-out songs, their notes slipping into echoes, whispers lost in air — melodies once alive, now dim, quiet, ghostly threads of a forgotten prayer.

My laughter, bright once, full of light, now drifts like a ghost, a distant hum. Without you as its muse, it stumbles, untethered, lost in empty rooms, swallowed by shadows. Its warmth is gone, a hollow sound, a song that fades into its own echo.

My poems, once vivid, once fierce, now trail off like ink bleeding from the page — words once bold, now softening, slipping away,

the color dulled, searching for the spark of you. Their voice wanes, their strength dissolves, as if the heart that held them has lost its way.

Silence sits with me, close and cold, a quiet weight that leans into my skin, its breath filling spaces you once filled, where your voice rose, filling every hollow. Now those spaces stand stark and bare, haunted by the memory of you.

Life spins around me, light and free, laughter drifting past like a breeze, easy and bold, its brightness stinging where dreams once lived. Its joy amplifies the ache of absence, and somewhere within, the longing blooms.

Yet somewhere, a glimmer — a faint, stubborn light flickers against the pull of darkness, a seed of hope stirring beneath the weight of time. For love, even faded and frayed, still breathes, and the world offers new songs, new blooms to unfold. The melody of life whispers a familiar rhythm, calling back the spark to color what’s left behind.

I step forward, each word a step toward the dawn, each verse a stone across the river of loss. With every breath, a part of me rekindles, finding the courage to rise again, transcending sorrow’s gray expanse, and letting light find its way in.

For within this heart, deep and quiet, there is a key, waiting, ready — to unlock the beauty that still lives within.

If You Still Miss Me

If you still miss me, go to the banks of the Sindh River, and sit a while beneath the Banyan tree, where the Cuckoo sows songs of summer on the breeze that drifts like dandelion seeds.

Put your feet into the river's cool clasp, and let the water carry you my songa tune I taught it in my young days, before the world grew old and wise. If you don't hear it, take a boat, let the river cradle you, down where my love is buried deep. It will rise to meet you, chasing you past lush fields of sugarcane, where bullock carts still groan, and buffaloes graze in the twilight haze.

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Let the evening cloak you, its dying sun a velvet kiss, roaming freely over the earth like the last breath of summer warmth. This fading light will find you, lingering there with memories, and reward you with the blush of our final farewell kissleft to hover, dust on the breeze.

When the sun dips low, feel the pink and golden glow of the old sun missing me there, its rays stretching across the sky like fragile hands that still reach out.

And as you leave, say hello to the willow treesnewborn guardians of this land who don't remember my name. I left before their roots touched earth, before their shadows grew tall. They stand, silent and unknowing, watching the river.

You'll see me, my lost love roaming beneath the twilight, where shadows stretch long, and the earth hums softly with memories of us, while the river, the sun, the trees, all hold their breath.

If I could

If I could choose to be anything in the universe, I would be the moon. I’d rise above, soft and silver, shining just for you, casting light upon your yard so you’d come out, wrapped in wonder, drawn to the coolness of my gaze.

From far away, I’d feel the warmth of your breath, the softness of your skin, the gentle curve of your smile. I’d linger, brushing your shoulders with my pale light, a song of closeness, a touch without touch, and I’d watch as you closed your eyes, drinking in the soft glow, as if I were near.

I'd be a river of silver spilling over your form, wrapping you in a quiet embrace, and you’d feel me in every pulse of your heart, every sigh you breathed. I’d settle upon you like a secret, like a kiss you could feel but never see, and you’d know me without ever knowing, close, yet impossibly far.

And when the night deepened, and you looked up, reaching with open hands, I’d drift through the dark, your silent companion, holding you in a way only the moon can, with all the grace of distance, and the thrill of what’s never truly touched.

The Divine Ache

Is it pain, or is it the longing for you? Whatever it is, it’s constant, a pulse that never dims, like the hum of old neon in forgotten alleys, or the scrape of a pen that never stops carving shadows into paper.

To forget, I wandered, from pubs to churches, in smoky rooms and silent pews, sought comfort in beauty, lost myself in bodies, took refuge in art, in creation, bleeding out pieces of myself onto canvas, into verse— but nothing—nothing could blunt this edge.

Is this the ache that made the world?

A shard of divinity, a heartbeat cracked and poured into the void. Perhaps creation itself was God’s own catharsis, each brushstroke a sigh, each word a whispered release, and we— we’re living in the echo of that endless ache, a masterpiece painted in longing, a sculpture hewn from sorrow’s hands.

I still remember that dark evening when we parted ways, You stood there silently, the moon watching you— its pale light tracing shadows on your face, on the ground, on the ache between us.

I painted that sadness across the black sky, each brushstroke heavier than the last, until it covered the universe, a blanket of quiet grief.

Now, that sadness drifts, falls softly like ash, finds its way into the hearts of strangers, who write and rewrite the same old ache, and sadness, again, creates poets.

That Dark Evening

Every poem I pen, Is born from the map of your body, Each line tracing the curve of your skin, Your eyes are endless wells of ink, Dark and brimming with stories untold.

I Write You

Your hands, They write themselves into my verses, Fingers like delicate quills, Stroking the surface of silence, Making words bloom where there was once nothing.

Your lips, They are where metaphors live, Soft, like the breath of a poem on the cusp of forming, Kissing the edge of every verse with breathless meaning.

Your body, A landscape of imagery, Hair swaying like lines in free verse, Graceful, unstructured, Yet deliberate in every motion.

Your heartbeat sets the rhythm, The cadence to which every stanza flows, Pulsing through each syllable, Reminding me that every poem, Is alive, Because you are its pulse.

Your breath,

A gentle exhalation of rhyme, Sighing between the spaces of words, Each inhale drawing new inspiration, Each exhale releasing a verse into the air, Filling the room with quiet, Tangible poetry.

I write you — Your body, a symphony of metaphors, An unspoken language that drips from my pen, And every poem I create, Is just a reflection, Of the poetry that you are.

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I left your land to be free of the ache, but your gaze reaches across the night, touching me softly, like the moon brushing the Nile’s dark, deep skin.

My Dark Messiah

Your eyes — a thousand stars glimmering, relentless, each light a doorway, a snare wrapped in beauty, an endless pull into places I thought I left behind. They pierce through the night like blades, sharp and unforgiving, their shimmer haunting, like salt on old wounds. I try to look away, but you burn across my mind’s eye, etching every corner with memories too vivid to fade, too cruel to forget.

In the rhythm of your breath, your voice calls like a Koel’s song, following me into the Rockies’ silence.

I close my eyes, cover my ears, but you become the ground underfoot, the boundless blue where I drown.

I cross borders, islands, seas, but you blaze beyond every line, my dark Messiah.

Tell me — where can I go to forget you?

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Ashes of the Poet

My dear poet, I see your smoking cigar, taking a deep breath, staring into the distance— as if your world is burning, as if every dream you once held is now wrapped in smoke, drifting away.

Your head burns into white ashes, scattering with the weight of words unspoken, falling freely, crumbling like all that you carry. The sorrow of the world presses into your bones— you feel it all, every cry, every wound, every forgotten tear.

You take long, desperate breaths, as if to ground yourself in these fleeting moments, but they slip from your hands, a river in constant flux, and you are drowning in the heaviness of it all.

You look at me with eyes so full of pain, searching for refuge, as if you want to bury yourself deep in my embrace, to vanish from this burning world.

I open my arms, and you collapse into me, your body trembling, your heart spilling all the grief you’ve swallowed.

I hold you close as you weep, like a child lost in the storm, needing only to forget— forget the weight of the world, forget the ashes falling, and just exist, for a moment, in the silence of love’s shelter.

Your name has never been a fleeting whisper upon my tongue. From the moment we first spoke, it was etched in my soul, a mark that can’t be erased. It’s both a gift and a foreboding sign.

Your voice has become the antidote for the days when I’m plagued by a madness I can’t seem to tame, a balm for the anxiety that tightens in my chest. When you sing to me, the fractures in my soul no longer feel so broken.

You are my sanctuary and my vulnerability, for I’m unaccustomed 22 | Page

Please Don’t Go

to loving someone so deeply that I tremble at the thought of your smile, fearful that if it fades, I’ll vanish with it.

But my love for you runs that deep.

You could shatter me in countless ways with a single word drifting from your lips, and I’ll confess that the knowledge of this often leaves me frozen in dread.

Your farewell may very well be my undoing.

Please don’t go…

Kissed by Dusk

Keep walking, beautiful girl, along the wet shore where the sea breathes softly, its cool sighs against your feet, waves kissing your skin with tender ease.

The sunset paints your face in hues of flame and rose, a wild lover cooled by twilight’s touch. Above, an ashen cloud, lonely and drifting, glows with the sun’s last golden touch. Even the sun, in its dying breath, offers you its final kiss.

And I, the poet, find my words in the way you lift your hair, a casual sweep across your eye a lover’s playful caress that stirs something deep within me, a quiet poem between us.