Aadil Ghulam Bhat Poet and Author Today, I am the shade of roses dead, Their petals bruised, now scattered on the ground. A token of the beauty once I knew, Now trampled 'neath the weight of careless feet. Once vibrant dreams, they gasp, they faint, they die, Like smoke that fades and vanishes in air. They curl into the void where once they burned. From castles high I built upon the clouds, Their walls now crumble, crumbling to dust. What I once loved slips like the sand through glass, Fading like whispers in the silent night. What’s left of me’s a heart in jagged shards, Heavy, broken, fragments of a soul. Today, I wear the crown of those long lost, A figure wrapped in shadows, deep in grief. Tomorrow stands, a faceless, silent page, Where no ink falls to mark what’s yet to come. Perhaps the sun has turned its face from me, Perhaps these shadows are my only guide. I drift, a ghost, between what was and is, A soul encased in winter’s endless frost, As cold as stone, as still...