Reply To Letter Never Sent Poem by Malabika Ray Choudhury

The letter was never delivered.
I never knew you wrote me a letter
until today.
You, the princess of my dreams, who did not look at me the way I was pining for,
almost never. Wrote me a letter and cherished it!
And I knew it not.

I was aware of your passion for reading …
So, gathering all my courage, toiling hours at the library,
declining my friend's invitation to join playing cricket,
I reached at your door-steps with beating heart, and handed you the books.
You said, 'Thank you', so gracefully! Yes, you did.
But that's all.

Now, after all these years, I know
you wrote me a letter, and safeguarded it in your treasured diary.
You waited for me the next day, and the next day, and the next.
I never came back!

My angel, why did you do that?
Our life moved in the opposite directions,
and I thought, that's how it meant to be.
I never knew, in the innermost corner of your heart,
I had a special place,
concealed like a tiny bud shielded with the tenderest leaves of your thoughts
who did not know its own fragrant existence,
and was afraid to unravel itself!