in a crowded room,
loneliness follows me like a shadow.
begins with a whisper,
telling me,
sadness is the only cloth to drape my shoulders.
slowly,
loneliness,
sadness,
engulf me with their flames.
hope,
a lump in my throat.
there is no way out,
loneliness whispers again.
guiding me towards the house they built for me.
loneliness,
sadness,
in their distinctive voices,
“we are forever yours,”
they tell me.
eternalise you.
i promised myself..
that i would not eternalise you..
certainly not within the pages of my notebook..
yet here i am..
finding solace in my only safe haven..
so fate would have it..
that you remain forever etched..
within the covers of my notebook..
even as i write this..
surely you must know..
what is written between these lines..
an infinity of unsent love letters..
his last goodbye.
they told me that it comes in waves.
that the pain will subside with time.
yet, here i am.
i cannot tell where my pain ends and my ocean of sorrow begins.
it is relentlessly constant.
as though my body has swallowed whole the hurt of all the brokenhearted.
tell me then, when will it end.
i would like to stop swimming in blue and coming up short of breath.
to inhale a new kind of feeling and not exhale his name.
do not ask me to remember what it was like before him.
lost in the ocean are memories of a life before him.
for life began with his love and ended with his last goodbye.
specs of hazel.
when you look at me
is it regret or longing.
the words in an ocean of brown
and specs of hazel
tellings of things your lips do not utter.
when you look at me
is it your pride that holds you back.
the same pride that brought us here.
is it regret or longing.
tell me.
for your eyes have become deceiving.
the same eyes i could read
and tell thousands of stories.
is it regret or longing
when you look at me.
will of my words.
i ask my dreams to turn you away
when you come wandering in.
but my dreams
they mistake you for one of them.
and i sit, an audience in front of my dreams.
so i ask my words
to write of another.
but my words
they look at me saying
if it is not for him we were created
then why exist at all.
and i succumb to the will of my words.
their poetry.
i look for other people’s words
to tell you what i cannot comprehend.
as i read their words aloud
memories of you echo in response.
and between their verses
i hide my longing.
between their verses
i pretend my love for you
is their love for another.
so in the nooks and crannies of their poetry
there i find a love letter in your name.
signed with anguish
from all the poets who fell in love with you.
differently.
most days..
i don’t miss you enough..
to call, to ask..
how was your day?
what did you eat?
how did you sleep?
i miss you enough..
to only think of you..
enough to forget and remember..
why we are where we are right now..
but today..
i miss you differently..
as though you are phantom pain of an amputated limb..
and i agonize all day..
wondering which part of me was taken..
while i was sedated by your world..
unforgiving pain crawls all over my body..
leaves me at the corner of my bed..
beads of cold sweat running down my face..
my throat closing in..
flash floods of unapologetic pain..
no kind of refuge can save me from this..
miserably i miss you today..
but tomorrow..
come tomorrow..
i will miss you enough to only think of you..
Firenze
i never meant to fall in love with you.
least of all as i walked the streets of firenze.
the scent of bitter coffee.
the light of lazy afternoons.
a life manifested right before my eyes.
firenze must have known.
though at different times.
we would take the same steps along its cobbled ways.
in the same corner of that small cafe.
on the same bench at that secret garden.
firenze knew.
firenze fell in love too.
too much
maybe i am too much.
say too much
love too much
feel too much.
then
shall i write of you in secret.
love you silently within the walls of my chest.
feel your touch blindly in my dreams.
i will.
i will become deaf and mute to words of you.
ignorant to your love.
numb to your feelings.
you cannot be.
i will not write about you
nor will i write for you.
you will not be the author of these lines
nor will you be the reason for these lines.
i will cling onto the branches of denial.
tiptoe on the edges of delusion.
misspell your name and forget the colour of your eyes.
you cannot be a reality i desire.
i will ignore the subtle ache in my stomach as you walk towards me.
i will pretend the smile on my face is not a reflection of your smile.
i will not follow a trail of thoughts that leads to you.
in a crowded room, you cannot be the one who finds the truth in my eyes.
i will not be your favourite book.
my soul, my habits, my anger will not be your favourite chapters.
put me back on a shelf in your library of the forgotten.
put me between a lost dream and a childhood memory.
no, you will not be my gravity or my sanity.
you cannot be the one my feet refuse to walk away from.
you cannot be the one who saves me.
words of a dreamer 