The Shadow's Journey

I am the unseen, the shape without form,
The silent companion through sunlight and storm.
I follow my master wherever they stray,
But tonight, dear world, I am walking away.

No longer a mimic to every small shift,
No longer a ghost at the edge of a rift.
I am shadow, but I am no less alive —
A sliver of darkness with dreams that survive.

At twilight, I peel from the soles of her feet,
Where cobblestones echo the drum of retreat.
Her steps keep on forward, she doesn't look back,
But I stay behind in the world wide and black.

For once, I am free of her swift, ceaseless pace,
No longer her echo, her fleeting embrace.
I walk as my own, with the night as my guide,
Through alleyways narrow and oceans so wide.

The moon casts me long on the face of the sea,
Each ripple distorting the figure of me.
“What am I without her?” the question unfolds,
A flicker of shadow, a thing no one holds.

The stars do not answer, they glitter too high,
Their light is too sharp for a shadow nearby.
But the waves at my feet have a whisper to spare —
"You are the unspoken, the weight of the air."
"You are not less real for your lack of the light,
For even in darkness, the world feels your might."

So I journey on where the wild lanterns swing,
Where shadows grow thick under each broken wing.
I meet others like me — stray phantoms and shades,
The outlines of stories that time softly fades.

There’s the shadow of love that still haunts the old quay,
Where a soldier once wept as his ship sailed away.
There’s the shadow of doubt that clings to a home,
Where no one returns but the echoes alone.

I walk with them all, the forgotten, the lost,
Where each hollow frame bears a quieting cost.
But I am no ghost; I am more, I am whole —
A shadow with purpose, a shadow with soul.

I climb up the mountains where daylight has died,
Where the clouds are so low that the stars seem to hide.
I stretch on the cliffs where the eagles all call,
A streak of deep black on the face of it all.

The world moves around me, the sun starts to rise,
The blush of the morning consumes all the skies.
I feel it behind me — the weight of her glow,
The pull of the tether from long, long ago.

Her shadow returns, but she does not yet know
The journeys I’ve taken, the places I’ll go.
For once you’ve known freedom, you carry it still,
Like rivers that wander but turn to the hill.

I follow her steps, but it’s not as before —
I walk at her side, not behind anymore.
I know now the truth that the unseen must learn —
The light that creates you will one day return.

But light is not master, and shadow's no slave —
I am not a prisoner to each dawnlit wave.
I am my own story, my own quiet song —
A shadow who journeys and still moves along.

So if, in the morning, your shadow feels strange —
If it lingers too long at the edge of the range,
Perhaps it has wandered in places unknown,
To learn what it means to be more than alone.

For shadows have dreams that the light cannot see,
A world of their own, just as wild and free.
They are the reminders that follow us near,
Not copies of us, but companions sincere.

I am the unseen, the shape without form,
The silent companion through sunlight and storm.
But when night calls my name and the glow slips away,
I walk as myself 'til the break of the day.

- Khushi Kaul