I Was Never a Poet
I was never a poet.
Just a man on wheels—
Spinning through Chittagong mornings,
Dodging buses and broken hearts alike,
Carrying parcels, not metaphors,
Messages, not metaphysics.
I once believed
Love could be delivered
Like a package with a slip to sign.
But every time I offered mine—
It came back
“Return to sender.”
I folded myself into cycles,
Rode faster than sorrow could follow.
While the city woke in rush and rain,
I pedaled against the ache of being
Not enough.
Not handsome enough.
Not rich enough.
Not whatever enough
For someone to say “Yes”
And mean it like forever.
Girls smiled at the flowers I brought
But not at the hands that held them.
I became an echo in alleyways,
A ghost in my own stories,
Always showing up,
Never staying.
So I wrote.
First, on delivery slips.
Then on the backs of grocery bills.
I scribbled questions between addresses:
“What makes me so easy to leave?”
And:
“If I arrive on time every day,
Why do hearts never wait?”
The handlebars became my pen.
The road, my lined page.
And each ride
A stanza of struggle, sweat,
And silent understanding.
They said poets feel deeply.
I did not set out to feel.
I just wanted to be seen.
To be chosen.
To matter in someone’s story.
But poetry came
Like rain on a dry afternoon—
Uninvited, but needed.
It taught me that heartbreak
Is a kind of ink,
That loneliness
Can be crafted into lines
That make even strangers pause.
I was never a poet
Until I bled enough
To stop hiding the wounds.
Until I realized
My bike isn’t just for earning—
It’s for learning
That love isn’t owed to the honest,
And rejection
Isn’t the end,
Just a red light
Before another green stretch.
So here I ride,
Verses in my courier bag,
Unsent letters in my lungs,
And hope strapped
To my back tire.
I was never a poet—
But life
Wrote me into one.
Author: Imjamul Hoque Bhuiyan
0 Comments