Threads Between Worlds

Threads Between Worlds

By Hasnain Shah

In the stillness of night,

when the air hums with the quiet of stars,

I sometimes wonder

if another version of me

stares at the same sky—

eyes wide,

heart trembling with questions

that never find their answers here.

The thought is a thread,

fine and silvery,

stretching across the unseen fabric of existence.

If I pull gently,

will I feel her tug back?

Will I sense the ripple of choices

that carried her somewhere

I never dared to go?

In one world,

I said yes instead of no.

I packed a suitcase,

boarded the plane,

and never looked behind me.

She lives in cities

whose names I’ve only whispered,

her laughter echoing through foreign streets,

her arms open to strangers

I’ll never meet.

In another,

I chose love over fear.

She is married now,

her fingers heavy with gold and promises.

Children cling to her skirt,

eyes reflecting her smile.

She knows exhaustion,

but she also knows

the steady comfort of belonging.

And in a darker place—

one stitched in shadow—

she never found her way out of grief.

Her voice cracked one too many times,

her hands let go of the railing,

and the stars above her

went black.

I ache for her

though I cannot touch her,

and I pray that even in that world,

someone lit a candle

to keep her warm.

Parallel universes—

they say they stretch endlessly,

a kaleidoscope of “what ifs”

and “if onlys.”

But I wonder,

are these selves truly strangers,

or are we mirrors,

shards of the same soul

trying on different futures

like gowns in a hidden closet?

Sometimes I feel them near,

their footsteps brushing mine,

their whispers threading through my dreams.

The dancer who never feared the stage.

The writer who never stopped writing.

The wanderer who never came home.

They walk beside me,

silent companions

woven into the air.

I think of the choices

so small they barely registered:

a phone call ignored,

a road turned left instead of right,

a word spoken too sharply,

a moment of hesitation.

Each one spun a new thread,

and in the loom of the cosmos,

every thread found a place,

every path continued—

not abandoned,

just lived elsewhere.

If I close my eyes,

I can almost touch them—

the girl who forgave sooner,

the one who never looked back,

the one who burned bridges,

the one who built them higher.

Each of us believing we are the only true self,

yet each of us

equally real.

So what is this world to me,

but the one I wake in,

the one where my hands

can only hold what’s here?

Perhaps that is the gift—

to live this thread fully,

not as a rehearsal,

not as a regret,

but as the singular story

my lungs and heartbeat were written for.

And yet,

I find comfort in knowing

she is out there—

all of them are out there—

dancing, grieving, loving, wandering.

Versions of me

woven into the tapestry of time,

none erased,

none forgotten.

Maybe when we dream,

we slip into their shoes,

borrowing their mornings,

their heartbreaks,

their triumphs.

Maybe when we feel déjà vu,

it’s not a glitch,

but a reminder:

we have walked this road before,

in another skin,

on another thread.

And maybe when we die,

we don’t disappear,

we just step sideways—

into the next world

already waiting for us,

already stitched

into the great design.

So I will not mourn

the lives I did not choose.

I will not envy

the versions of me

who glowed brighter or fell harder.

Instead, I will stand in awe

at the vastness of being,

the miracle of existing

not once, but endlessly.

For every breath I take here

is echoed elsewhere,

and every step I make

is a vibration through countless selves.

We are not alone,

we are never alone—

we are a chorus of selves,

singing across the veil,

threads between worlds,

woven tighter

than we’ll ever know.