The heart gets lost between the green light on the street and the green light on Messenger.

Green Lights

Tulip Chowdhury
2 min readMay 14, 2024

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Red light in traffic,

I press the brake of my rickety VW

and wait for the green to press the accelerator.

Meanwhile, voices from NPR on the car radio fill me

filters out news of home and foreign lands.

My fingers tap impatiently on the steering

eyes scan the surroundings and quickly come back

on the traffic light.

Is it green? Still waiting. Let’s check the phone.

Right-hand stretches for the iPhone on the dashboard.

Ting-ting! Ting-ting! I have been hearing

of incoming messages.

Quick as lightning, thumbs scroll to Facebook

and then on to Messenger.

My heart leaps.

My beloved has his tiny green button on!

I have to say Hi and send a red heart Emoji.

Fingers are ready to type the message, but then

the traffic light turns green.

I want to send a heart, at least.

The driver from the back honks loudly.

Oh no!

I press the accelerator, and the car rolls on.

But my heart and soul linger on a green light;

a tiny one on my phone.

Couldn’t the red light be on a little longer?

Tulip Chowdhury writes from Georgia, USA.

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Tulip Chowdhury
Tulip Chowdhury

Written by Tulip Chowdhury

Tulip is a poet, columnist, author, and the 2024 International Impact Book Awards winner for her novel "Visible, Invisible, and Beyond."