Have You Ever Felt The Way I Feel?

Shahriyer Hossain Shetu

Have you ever been so broken, so badly hurt, so emotionally devastated that you don't even know how to react?

Have you ever felt so hurt that there is an unexpected heaviness in your throat, a sudden pain in the chest, and your fingers shiver as if you are in the middle of ice?

Have you ever felt like breaking everything around you and yourself just to ease the pain, which is slowly eating you inside like a disease?

Have you ever felt so helpless and so weak that all you can do is fake your smile in front of others - but at the same time, you hope that someone will come to you and make you realize that things will be alright?

Have you ever felt like crying and screaming in the middle of nowhere till your jaw can't bear it anymore and your voice can simultaneously feel what your mind feels?

Have you ever felt so confident about your bad luck that you don't even dare to create a good bond with other people?

Have you ever felt so low that you can't concentrate on anything, and your mind is filled with anger, sadness, jealousy, pain, and the torture of being a failure?

Have you ever felt like the one who cannot do certain things because he/she does not have the power, the right, the money, capability, the audacity, the luck, the standard, the support, or anything that can influence to go beyond limitations?

Have you ever felt like giving up on everything and running away from the insufferable pain of life - the life that is joyous for some, and for some “the joy that kills?”

***

Bio of Shahriyer Hossain Shetu

Shahriyer Hossain Shetu is an undergrad student at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh. He is currently in his 10th semester and has been a Peer Tutor and a Peer Mentor at his University. Currently, he is working as a Campus Ambassador at Teach For Bangladesh. He is also a sub-editor at his University yearly departmental Magazine, ULAB MUSE. He has contributed to multiple national and international newspapers and online journals. One of his translations of Kazi Nazrul Islam’s poem “Shuddho koro Amar Jibon” - “Purify My Life” is published at The Daily Star Literature Section. He published an opinion “What Is Normal?” at the Dhaka Tribune. In addition, many of his translations and poems were published at the online Singapore-based Journal, The Borderless Journal. 

---

Setu September 2021