ABOUT THE POEM: "Hanisha" is a painful, detailed recollection of first love, rejection, and the enduring wound of youthful self-doubt. The poem vividly recounts a teenager's innocent search for connection being met with a sharp, public rejection that spiraled into veiled threats and a permanent questioning of the narrator's worth. The final image of silence and missed chances—culminating years later in a brief, awkward reunion—underscores how an early, formative heartbreak can cast a long, shadow over an entire lifetime, leaving essential words unspoken.I remember the moment of love at first sight.
I didn’t want to touch, or claim, or prove desire-
I stood there whole, yet utterly alone,
searching for beauty,
with the honesty of the observer.
When she learned I existed, she invited me to talk.
I asked if she’d like to be friends.
She said, “I’m not interested.”
And for an instant, I felt as if I had crossed a line I never even approached.
I stood there, silent,
said okay,
and left.
Sometimes I wonder why she responded like that.
I couldn’t find an answer, so I put it like this:
I wasn’t asking for permission to put a finger in her hole and sniff it,
or present the finger to her, for her to smell.
We were fifteen.
She had a boyfriend, I learned later.
Maybe that’s why she turned away so sharply.
She brought ten friends, her elder sister,
to make a scene outside my classroom.
Even after that, a guy about a foot taller than me asked me to meet him outside the school.
I went alone.
He told me she had a boyfriend
and that I should stop pursuing her.
Her rejection left a mark-
it questioned my worth,
and that question never left me.
I am in my forties now.
I was the topper of the school.
Months later, she came to the canteen,
two friends in tow.
“Hi,” she said,
“Did you recognize me?”
Her head stayed down.
I said, “Hi,” greeted her friends,
and answered yes.
I asked, “How are you?”
She replied the same.
Then silence.
I turned back to the counter,
picked up two cold drinks,
and left.
Standing with three friends, I heard her passing by:
“Drink, drink, misers!”
She used to rub her fingers kuncles with mine in the crowd,
at the final bell,
students spilling toward the exit.
Once, she put her hand on my shoulder, talking to someone else, accidental.
Once, she draped her arm over mine,
like the Titanic pose,
for seven seconds-
until I realized she wasn’t my friend;
she was someone else. I mean her.
On the last day of school,
I kept seeing her going home,
walking the empty school street,
and I know this was the last time I get to see her,
I wanted to say something, but didn’t know what, didn’t know how?
