I wear my father’s shirt

And the dignity,

When the dusk appears dark

Reflection over mirror forms portrayal

In the boxes of parallel illusions.

I step out myself little from the oblivion

While followed by the shadow of warmth

Myriad springs pitched by the essence of vitality

In palpable battles of bliss and prosperity.

I wear pride over my membrane

With little patting and hands over shoulders,

Accompanied by the faith

Praises over the accomplishments and support in defeat.

I wear pride in my veins and existence in my tone

A delighted double helix when I’m called by my father’s name,

Near the old lane, he fights for me every day

There are pronunciations a lot though the emotions same.

I wear pride in my inherited chromosome

With lashes of swirling blossoms in my vessel

I do possess the heart of a euphoric realm

With the aroma of dignity.

I wear pride

Holding his fingers in my fist

Walking wobbly I acquire his resilience.

He lives his childhood in me and I,

I wear pride and ornaments of bliss,

I wear dignity,

I wear his name.

A spark was lit by words unseen,

A gift that spoke: “We see your dream.”

From passion’s pulse to purpose found,

Your faith in me — a strength profound.

Beyond the screen, your kind surprise,

Turned quiet effort into rise.

With every post, each crafted line,

You gave my story space to shine.

Thank you, BSMe2e, for seeing me —

For turning small steps to possibility.

In pages yet unwritten, know this truth:

Your belief became my muse.

A normal morning — laughter as soft as the dawn,

Fresh uniforms, dreams tucked away with care in bags,

Sparkling eyes with promise for the morning after,

Light feet on the journey to the air.

Children who drew airplanes in their books,

Whose souls hummed to the rhythm of engines,

Had taken that flight as boarding hope,

Not aware that hope falls from the sky, too.

Parents at the pane, waving,

Smiles as warm as sun on schoolyard grounds

Unknowing those waves were last goodbyes,

Or the blue sky would claim so much love.

The aircraft departed, a silver bird against morning clouds,

But dreams break sooner than wings,

And prayers screamed up into soundless heaven,

Sometimes find no place to touch down.

When the news arrived, time stood still —

Phones ringing, voices shattering, hearts breaking.

Mothers collapsed to the floor, fathers stared at walls,

Brothers and sisters grasped at thin air

Wishing it weren’t so, to wind the clocks back.

Empty desks in Milestone halls,

Names still spoken in trembling roll calls,

Lunchboxes unopened, books uncompleted,

As if the children might return to claim them.

The taste of burnt metal remains in memory,

But more destruction is in living hearts:

The empty chairs at dinner tables,

Birthdays shrouded in sorrow,

Report cards always blank, diplomas never reached.

In the vacant spots of classrooms,

Friends write to ghosts,

Fingers following the outline of faces

Smiling only in pictures now.

The black box might inform us how,

But never why,

Nor bring back laughter echoing

Down Milestone’s shining halls.

And in sleep, parents hear the noise,

Of small shoes racing down empty houses,

And shadows spring by bedroom doors,

Before waking with hurt sharp as loss.

They were merely children —

With poems unwritten, loves unspoken,

Tomorrows gone to metal and flame.

Wings that flew in hope,

And never returned.

In the soft dawn of girlhood she wakes,
Wrapped in innocence and unspoken wonder,
A bud untouched by life’s biting winds,
Yet destined to bloom through storms.
The journey from adolescence to womanhood —
A path of petals and thorns, laughter and lament,
Where dreams and doubts dance like shadows at dusk.
She learns to walk that narrow bridge,
Balancing fear and hope, love and loss,
Eyes wide open to a world that speaks in riddles,
Yet never tells her story whole.

In hidden corners of her heart, she carries
A truth few see: Femininity in silence and strength.
Soft-spoken yet unbreakable, she stands,
A lighthouse for those who wander in the dark.
She is a quiet prayer whispered before dawn,
A fierce tide no chains can tame.
She bears the weight of generations past,
Yet dares to rise, to speak, to write her name on the sky.

Femininity: not weakness, but a sacred flame,
Gentle yet wild, tender yet unyielding.
In her smile blooms the warmth of morning sun,
In her tears flows the strength of rivers.
Her hands cradle life and build dreams from dust,
Her words can heal or ignite revolutions.
She is the poet and the poem, the song and its echo,
A symphony written in the language of the soul.

Yet around her swirl the shadows of taboos,
Whispers in kitchens, silence in classrooms,
Scarlet secrets stained into white sheets,
Shame wrapped in tradition’s cold embrace.
The world hushes her truths, labels them sin or scandal,
Calls her body a battlefield and her voice a rebellion.
Yet even behind closed doors, she writes,
Etching her story on walls unseen, unashamed.

For hidden within her chest beats a resolve,
To educate, empower and embrace —
To learn from the scars, to teach the unspoken,
To lift the veils cast over daughters’ dreams.
She becomes the teacher in quiet rooms,
The mother who whispers courage into trembling hearts,
The friend who shares hope like shared bread.
In every lesson, she plants seeds of change,
Roots that will split the stones of silence.

With every breath, she fights to break stereotypes,
To rise above labels that shrink her worth,
To shatter the glass walls built by ancient fear.
She is more than beauty, more than sacrifice,
More than the roles written for her by others.
She is scholar, leader, creator, fighter,
A soul too vast to be caged by a single name.
She reclaims what the world denied:
Her right to exist boldly, love deeply, live freely.

By moonlight, she writes in Her Red Diary,
Ink as crimson as the truths she pens:
The first bleed that told her she was woman,
The ache of unspoken longings, the weight of unseen wars.
Her diary becomes her sanctuary and sword,
A testament that pain, once faced, becomes power.
Each word bleeds strength into paper veins,
Telling tales the world fears to hear.

She learns, again and again, that pain is power,
That from the ashes of heartbreak rises resolve,
That wounds, though deep, birth wisdom and fire.
The agony of birth, the sting of betrayal,
The ache of loss — none break her spirit.
Instead, they forge her into something unshakable,
A woman who loves without fear, speaks without apology,
Stands even when the earth beneath her trembles.

And so, the tale of womanhood is written not in pages,
But in the silent prayers whispered at dawn,
The quiet tears wiped away before the mirror,
The laughter shared over humble meals,
The fierce embrace of daughters and sisters.
It is a saga of strength clothed in softness,
Of voices that rise despite centuries of silence,
Of hearts that refuse to bow to shame.

In the hush of night, she stands, diary in hand,
Ink flowing, soul speaking, world listening.
She is every mother, every daughter, every sister —
Each step forward, a defiance of fear,
Each word written, a monument to survival.
And as dawn breaks on yet another day,
She smiles, knowing the truth within her chest:
That womanhood is not a burden, but a birthright,
Not silence, but symphony,
Not weakness, but the fiercest kind of power.

So let the world remember her tale,
Carved in scars and sung in laughter,
A story too bright to be hidden,
A tale of womanhood — eternal, unbroken, and free.

I was never a poet.

Just a man on wheels—

Spinning through Chittagong mornings,

Dodging buses and broken hearts alike,

Carrying parcels, not metaphors,

Messages, not metaphysics.

I once believed

Love could be delivered

Like a package with a slip to sign.

But every time I offered mine—

It came back

“Return to sender.”

I folded myself into cycles,

Rode faster than sorrow could follow.

While the city woke in rush and rain,

I pedaled against the ache of being

Not enough.

Not handsome enough.

Not rich enough.

Not whatever enough

For someone to say “Yes”

And mean it like forever.

Girls smiled at the flowers I brought

But not at the hands that held them.

I became an echo in alleyways,

A ghost in my own stories,

Always showing up,

Never staying.

So I wrote.

First, on delivery slips.

Then on the backs of grocery bills.

I scribbled questions between addresses:

“What makes me so easy to leave?”

And:

“If I arrive on time every day,

Why do hearts never wait?”

The handlebars became my pen.

The road, my lined page.

And each ride

A stanza of struggle, sweat,

And silent understanding.

They said poets feel deeply.

I did not set out to feel.

I just wanted to be seen.

To be chosen.

To matter in someone’s story.

But poetry came

Like rain on a dry afternoon—

Uninvited, but needed.

It taught me that heartbreak

Is a kind of ink,

That loneliness

Can be crafted into lines

That make even strangers pause.

I was never a poet

Until I bled enough

To stop hiding the wounds.

Until I realized

My bike isn’t just for earning—

It’s for learning

That love isn’t owed to the honest,

And rejection

Isn’t the end,

Just a red light

Before another green stretch.

So here I ride,

Verses in my courier bag,

Unsent letters in my lungs,

And hope strapped

To my back tire.

I was never a poet—

But life

Wrote me into one.

What have I even done with my life?

There’s a simple fuchka stall—

No neon sign, no business logo,

Just a wooden cart on the edge of a busy street

That quietly makes more than two lakh taka

On a good rush-day.

And there I was—

Stuck in a long line of hungry, tired souls.

I waited 30 minutes, not to eat,

But to pick up just two plates

For a delivery order.

People ahead of me laughed,

Took selfies, added filters,

While the man behind the stall?

He just worked—calm, focused, effortless.

Like he was writing poetry

With tamarind and mashed potatoes.

When my turn finally came,

He looked me in the eye, smiled,

And said,

“Sir, ei nen apnar fuchka.”

And I froze for a second.

Because in that moment,

I thought to myself—

“Uncle, you’re the one I should be calling ‘Sir’…”

It hit me hard.

All my years chasing GPAs,

Job interviews in ironed shirts,

Sitting through webinars about growth,

When all along—

Success was being cooked

Right there on a street corner

In mustard oil and mint water.

We’re taught to chase desks,

To climb ladders that touch glass ceilings.

But some—

They build empires from sidewalks,

Brick by invisible brick,

Flavour by honest flavour.

He didn’t wear a tie.

He didn’t need a LinkedIn bio.

But he had a line that stretched

Longer than a job fair queue.

He had loyalty,

Served hot, with a sprinkle of spice and dignity.

Everyone wants to be called ‘Sir’…

But real respect?

That doesn’t come with titles.

It comes with consistency.

With rising early.

With showing up.

With feeding a city

One plate at a time.

Respect isn’t about salaries,

It’s not sealed in office walls.

Sometimes, it’s found in—

Spicy water,

Paper plates,

And the tired, cracked hands

That never stopped moving.

And as I rode away

With two plates of fuchka

Balanced on my cycle,

I realized—

He’s not just selling snacks.

He’s serving purpose.