The ghosts still sing in Shantinagar

The radio hums a hymn through static,
a choir of dust, pale as old regrets.
Someone left the stairwell lights on,
though no one has lived here since Baishakh last year.

I find your shoes beneath the window,
laces tied like patient hands
that remember how to wait.
The moon hangs soft—a silver wound—
and Dhaka exhales in restless whispers.

The ceiling groans under its own heat,
paint curling like tired skin.
A child laughs somewhere,
though children have long forgotten this street.

Your diary smells of petrichor,
ink wet with prayers
that never left the page.
When the power flickers,
I hear your voice trapped inside,
sliding through the margins
like smoke through a keyhole.

I call your name into the tin-roof rain.
You answer in the kettle's sigh:
"Do not weep—I am here,"
in the fog, the walls, the lullabies
I still hum to myself.

Outside, rickshaw bells move like planets,
their wheels tracing small, infinite circles.
Somewhere near the peeling gate,
your shadow hums—discreet, patient, eternal.

I hum our song back to you,
angels and river foam tangled in the refrain.
When dawn burns the ghosts away,
the air still tastes like home.

But every night, when prayers fall silent,
and shutters tremble in their frames,
I see your silhouette by the balcony rail—
waiting for me, still calling my name.

Adiba Asad has been living in the spaces between raindrops and rickshaw bells for longer than she can remember. She's currently negotiating with a shadow that refuses to leave the balcony. Reach out to her before she succumbs to the shadow: [email protected].