Hope Rekindled – A Poem by Snigdha Agrawal

on the first day of the New Year
she checked her phone again and again
for greetings from that memorised number,
as always.

she fed herself excuses:
slow internet,
some convenient emergency,
sleeping in late

every year, the same ritual
hope humiliating itself
wishes never came
It never does

still, her heart
refuses to break
it clings, not out of faith,
but habit
a love long past forgiveness,
loving even the absence
answering back.