Love In The Shadows Poem by Mohammad Younus

Children arrive, their hearts unknowing,
girls stepping into womanhood
before they understand its weight,
boys bearing manhood on narrow shoulders,
while the world demands patience
where nature does not wait.

Desire awakens before wisdom,
love calls before promises can hold.
Unfamiliar hands reach in the dark,
longing for warmth,
but finding only rules written in cold ink.

A world that craves love
but builds no place for it—
where passion is a whisper in the dark,
hidden, silenced, waiting.

Once, homes were lit
by the first trembling sparks of youth,
now they wait for careers, for success,
for something deemed worthy of love's arrival.
But hearts, left untended,
forget how to open.

Is this wisdom,
or have we mistaken hesitation for virtue?
Nature moves, relentless,
while we stand still,
watching love fade into shadow.

—MyKoul