You must have heard the story of your birth a thousand times by now, sweetheart. Your mother and I—home alone.

I skip talking to myself for hours / The “me time”, before going to bed

If you travel on a bus, always take the window seat.

Is it true that when we migrate, we lose a few people from our past?

Again, I wasn’t a poet, but words and sentences jumbled up seeing that small face, light make-up enhancing her beauty. A loose strand of hair cascaded down her cheek, framing her face.

It was not a question one would ask as he did/ With his round glasses at the end of his nose

i quite like the smell of cloves, even more when they're burning/ turning charcoal in front of my eyes

This is a garden, these are my petals; this is my armoring plant

The majority of my early childhood was spent in a big house filled with endless possibilities. At least, that’s what my preteen self thought at the time.

Sweat beads upon my brow, my shirt begins to cling/ The vile monster's tendrils reach out, adhesive

I've seen love/ Rolling down from a mother's eyes/ As she picks her lean child, bathed in innocent blood

go further than/ what the hills have seen/ through their ice pick scars

When there’s a lull in the air, I get the feeling that I’ve scraped the bottom of my fleshy insides.

Dust patterns have gathered around my landline phone, huddling around the maroon. my fingerprints take some dust off of it, and they rejoice.

The mosque committee was quite displeased with Rashed, their young muezzin.

Buckets of water I pour on my head; my vision gets blurry./ "The blurrier, the merrier", my mother said.

The yard in this noontime is buzzing with/ The white aroma of the guava flower

I’m going through a heartbreak

Shahaduz Zaman stands out prominently as a significant figure in the contemporary Bangla literary landscape, utilising intertextuality throughout his works, and   infusing various texts and genres into his narratives.

Everyone gathered around the east end of the Shashipur to watch Sharafat Miah dig his own grave. The local kids lurked around Sharafat’s old hut, keeping a watch on the progress of the grave until their mothers came to pick them up after Maghrib.