Who told you that I want to live my own life and leave you?

Who told you that I want to separate myself in the blink of an eye

and go to opposite bays surrounded by solitude?

I always wanted to build a home with you. 

But you never meant to be! 

You couldn’t be my home. 

You couldn’t ensure my safety and sanity! 

My home became a jail with you. 

My mind became a slave. 

My life is entangled with your melodramas. 

My reliance became pawned. 

I had to lose you to find me. 

I had to leave you in search of myself! 

I wish you could think of being a part of mine. 

But, no, you wanted to assimilate and 

dissolve me into your impurities. 

Forgetting that I am ever divine, 

Not made for shiny pearls so clandestine. 

But I could become your tangy clementine. 

Sour but sweet, 

You sucked all the goodness inside of me. 

Whatever’s left, I don’t want to share it anymore. 

Every time I share my kindness with anyone,

I get betrayed. 

Every time I try to linger on, I get swayed away! 

Every time I think of an ‘us,’ it ends up becoming ‘only me.’ 

Every time I think of a ‘team,’ it always grows to be a ‘one-man army’, 

Alas! Some people are better alone. 

A lonely rider, 

Some are singular and particularistic, 

Not many can keep up the pace with them. 

Sometimes, it’s better to shred armor alone! 

©® Farheen Bhuiyan Nancy

July 2023, University of Dhaka