(4) It has Really been a Long Time…

Author: Rizwan Ahmed Memon

Akil Village,
Larkana, Sindh, Pakistan
February 20, 2014

Dearest Seemi,

When a person waits for someone to come or something to happen, every moment to him or her seems endless. A day drags on like a decade, a night like a century. However, it has really been too long since I last saw you.

The New Year has come, and you have still not shown up. The winter has set out, and the spring has set in, but there is no portent of your coming.

Now, I can’t hold back my tears. I am falling to pieces. Your long absence is killing me. My notebook has no blank pages, so I can write more poems to express my longing. There is an end to everything, but why not to our separation? I was reading some novels, just to keep myself busy and to amuse my heart. The novels have ended, but why has this distance between us not ended?

I waited for you, I am waiting, and I will wait, but I have now realized that this separation, this longing will soon end my waiting and will take my life. I won’t be here to see your return because the merciless time has impaled my body so thoroughly that I can’t bear the pain, and the torment will soon take the breath from my body.

If we can’t meet in this world, I hope we will meet in the Hereafter, in a perpetual world. I will wait there for you to come into that world, and to end this separation finally.

Yours forever,

Rizwan