Hannan Khan
Love.exe: Connection Failed {Error 404}
you leave lost letters like lacerated
bread–
crumbs–
t–h–e–i–n–t–i–m–a–t–e–d–i–s–t–a–n–c–e–b–e–t–w–e–e–n–u–s
expands……………………. expands… ………………….expands…
until i’m almost hunger with no mouth
i gather missing syllables of you
hold them on my silent tongue
like unswallowed, unheard names.
the erased echoes of what never was
a treeless forest of awol footsteps.
———
you carve out a seat—
an invisible pew, still—
my spine bends like dusk
———
you were here, you say, though i never saw you
my phone screams silence…a missed call of static
i hold my breath…thinking you’ll resurrect
but ghosts don’t answer texts—only haunt
a chair unoccupied; my name turns to vapor
(a glitch, you say, not a disappearance)
the echo of you is just a glitch
the absence loops—a cruel program in static
i tarry in old conversations, a vapor
of past words dissolving. you resurrect
only in the periphery, haunt
my inbox like a message undelivered.
and still i wonder: did you mean to haunt
or am i caught in some cosmic glitch
love is a server crash, no way to resurrect
an update may come, but now? static
i message again but my words vapor
(you were here, you say) another disappearance.
you always do this—another disappearance
a hypnotic magician’s trick, a final haunt
all of my memories of you turn vapor
our shared moments rewired into glitch
my faith in return reduced to static
you won’t reply…the dead don’t resurrect
but one day, ghost resurrects.
a text: “hey stranger” (after a long disappearance)
my phone pings. all quiet turns static
the void between us shifts. again, you haunt
but i’m no longer caught in the glitch
you’re just another vapor
i leave you unseen, let leaking love turn vapor
there’s no magic trick to resurrect
the ghost of you is only a glitch
one last disappearance… no more haunt
my hands erase you. the silence is static
(you were never here, you say)
———
you never speak but you always there
a satellite caught in my sable night sky’s fringe
your voidness is a hush in the air
your silhouette dissolves, an unseen stare
just out of reach…the space between us sings
you never speak, but you’re always there
i feel you lingering like lifeless prayer
your orbit draws me in yet leaves me hanging
your voidness is a hush in the air
the gravity of ghost is never fair
you pull away just when i try to cling
you never speak, but you’re always there
your messages float hanging somewhere
caught in the drift where faded transmissions ping
your voidness is a hush in the air
one day, i’ll look and find an empty glare
a vanished moon, no longer orbiting
you never speak, but you’re always there
your voidness is a hush in the air
———
[system boot: undead.exe]
[retrieving deleted messages…]
[warning: data corruption detected]
they never stay buried. a fainted eye emerges from the dirt of bygone conversations…gaze clotted with the remnants of what we were. a notification blinks. you swiftly rise from the grave of my memory—half decayed…wearing the skin of nostalgia. You say, “hey love.” but your words are tightly stitched together remnants of things you once meant, a frankenstein text…a necromanced love. i look at the blinking cursor, feeling the frozen grip of déjà vu.
do i respond? do i salt the earth?
[system error: undo not available]
———
boom
b–o–o–m
you arrive like an eclipse
moon–drunk…burning
my name into your cathedral of ribs
every syllable a cathedral. every kiss a vow
that wilts “forever” you say like a rosary of fire
but fire only knows how to consume.
———
Love—
s–p–l–i–n–t–e–r–s–d–i–s–s–o–l–v–e–s–i–n–t–o–c–i–p–h–e–r–s
(a withered voice in the stagnant)
…………………………….(a love letter savagely eaten by the abyss)
sending…
…………sending…
……………………sending…
<<unsent message>>
{transmission lost} {signal degraded} {rerouting… rerouting…}
[error: attachment missing] [error: recipient doesn’t exist]
[warning: love has timed out. no more chances to reconnect]
_______________
Hannan Khan — a nefelibata, poet, and scholar of literature & linguistics from Pakistan. He combs through moments of love, death, delirium & relational complexities, seraphically tracing what’s breathed and what flickers unbreathed. His pen grooves between haibun & heartbreak, ghazals & ghost games, intimacy & apocalypse. Winner of the Native Voices Award 2025 for his poetry collection Isn’t Cooked Is Cursed, he thrives on distorting the ordinary until it sings. When he craves reprieve, he devours dark thrillers like he’s dissecting crime scenes — psychological, raw, unpredictable. He sips coffee, reads Manto & lets the world unravel. His work has appeared in Failed Haiku, IHRAM Literary Magazine, Graveside Press, SpecPoVerse, Eye To The Telescope, Abyss & Apex, The Headlight Review, The /tƐmz/ Review, The Literary Hatchet & is forthcoming in Notch Magazine, Winds Of Asia & Native Voices Anthology. Poetry is his altar; Fiction, his rebellion. He writes to unsettle, to unearth, to unlace. For a glimpse into his life, find him on Instagram: @hannan.khan.official
[‘Nefelibata’ is Portuguese for cloud walker: someone who lives in their own imagination and dreams. Editor]
Author’s Backstory: Not too long ago, I found myself creatively drained — stuck writing the same kind of poesy with the same emotional beats. I craved chaos & experimentation to challenge myself with something radically unorthodox. That’s when I asked myself: what if I penned a solo poem that cradled every form I loved at once? Something wild, a break from predictability.
That ferocious idea morphed into Love.exe: Connection Failed {Error 404}. It’s a piece that blends free verse, haiku, concrete poetry, villanelle, sestina, prose poetry, epistolary form, code poetics, lyricism, even metaphysical echoes — all packed into one continuous narrative. A fragmented love story revisualized through the lens of digital age disconnection & ghosting.
After writing it, I held off on sharing it anywhere. It felt too strange, too hybrid & I wasn’t sure if any journal would embrace something so structurally unruly. But in that vacillation, I sent it to Abyss & Apex. Luckily, to my surprise this odd experiment turned into a dark horse — it resonated & unearthed its haven.
This piece remains one of my most experimental pieces & I hope it chatters through your screens & into your silences.
Editor’s Comments and Image Credit: The image generated after numerous phrasings and iterations finally resulted from: “create an abstract image of a copper-color electronic printed circuit board; superimpose several blue neurons on it.” The desired abstract image emerged (Wixel/Wix.com). (A Reverse image search showed some similarities with several Stockcake sources, but they are all free to use.)