50 Faces of Separation
Tracing What Cannot Be Held
Some poems do not begin with feeling.
They begin with awareness.
A journey through silence, shadow, and the sublime lines of existence emerged from a moment when I felt surrounded by questions rather than emotions. Not questions that seek answers but questions that insist on being acknowledged. This poem is less a confession and more an act of witnessing.
The repeated resolve of “we too shall” is intentional. It is a quiet declaration. Not of certainty, but of participation. As if to say: even in confusion, even in doubt, we will continue to trace, to sketch, to observe. When I wrote,
“We too shall trace the imprints of thought,
And sketch our questions upon the mirror,”
I was thinking about how often we look at ourselves expecting clarity and instead find deeper layers of uncertainty. The mirror does not respond it reflects.
Silence plays a central role in this poem. Not the absence of sound, but the density of it. There are moments in life when stillness becomes so heavy that it feels louder than noise. In those moments, we attempt the impossible to draw sound from silence, meaning from dust.
“When the silence of life shatters,
We shall capture the boiling void.”
This line holds a tension I often feel while writing: the desire to preserve something that cannot be contained. Emptiness is not empty it moves; it burns, it demands to be seen.
The poem also walks through illusion and truth. Mirages, veils, shadows all symbols of the fragile boundary between what is real and what is believed. When I ask:
“In the desert of the eye’s mirage,
Shall we cast the nets of truth?”
it is not optimism it is risk. Truth is not guaranteed, but the act of seeking it becomes its own meaning.
What stays with me most is the closing image: dunes shaped by wind. They are never still, yet they endure. Perhaps existence is the same constantly altered, never finished, yet profoundly present.
This poem does not promise arrival. It promises movement. Tracing, sketching, narrating again and again. In silence. In shadow. In the fragile beauty of trying to understand.
Thank you for reading with patience, and for allowing these lines to exist alongside your own questions.
Zeeshan Ameer Saleemi
Some poems do not begin with feeling.
They begin with awareness.
A journey through silence, shadow, and the sublime lines of existence emerged from a moment when I felt surrounded by questions rather than emotions. Not questions that seek answers but questions that insist on being acknowledged. This poem is less a confession and more an act of witnessing.
The repeated resolve of “we too shall” is intentional. It is a quiet declaration. Not of certainty, but of participation. As if to say: even in confusion, even in doubt, we will continue to trace, to sketch, to observe. When I wrote,
“We too shall trace the imprints of thought,
And sketch our questions upon the mirror,”
I was thinking about how often we look at ourselves expecting clarity and instead find deeper layers of uncertainty. The mirror does not respond it reflects.
Silence plays a central role in this poem. Not the absence of sound, but the density of it. There are moments in life when stillness becomes so heavy that it feels louder than noise. In those moments, we attempt the impossible to draw sound from silence, meaning from dust.
“When the silence of life shatters,
We shall capture the boiling void.”
This line holds a tension I often feel while writing: the desire to preserve something that cannot be contained. Emptiness is not empty it moves; it burns, it demands to be seen.
The poem also walks through illusion and truth. Mirages, veils, shadows all symbols of the fragile boundary between what is real and what is believed. When I ask:
“In the desert of the eye’s mirage,
Shall we cast the nets of truth?”
it is not optimism it is risk. Truth is not guaranteed, but the act of seeking it becomes its own meaning.
What stays with me most is the closing image: dunes shaped by wind. They are never still, yet they endure. Perhaps existence is the same constantly altered, never finished, yet profoundly present.
This poem does not promise arrival. It promises movement. Tracing, sketching, narrating again and again. In silence. In shadow. In the fragile beauty of trying to understand.
Thank you for reading with patience, and for allowing these lines to exist alongside your own questions.
Zeeshan Ameer Saleemi
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