The other day you were online,
I said, “hi,” you said, “hi u there!”
The feeling of being in a secret corner
in the vast open world sprouted
and made me smile, after all,
you were spontaneous to my call.
“How have you been?” I said,
“fine,” and you, with a smiley
that made me grin
“I missed you,” responded,
with an “I missed you too”

Unbelievable, though it seemed,
there was nothing to doubt,
soon the sentences flew
interspersed with emotions,
emoticons, facial expressions,
cartoonified, fake hearts beating
with digital cupids hovering
like butterflies on a sunny spring meadow.
The taps on the keyboard grew fast, blind,
typing tied to the rising adrenaline…

The heart beat fast, faster,
to the hits on the keyboard
and broke.
I had just typed,
“I am in pain without you,”
you smiled and winked
I wrote “qwertypoiuy,”
you said, “that’s a nice name.”

Mohammad Zahid is a poet/translator from Kashmir, India. “The Pheromone Trail” is his first collection of poetry. His upcoming work is translation of Kashmiri Language and Poetry, a critical work on Kashmiri poetry.