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not the grand gestures of thousand flowers or diamond rings or mindlessly swept credit cards, but the actions where you are left a gentle reminder of how love can make you forget about your own happiness just for their affection in return

like sharing an umbrella and ending up with the wetter shoulder.

What do I have now if not grief to call mine?

~your love

Where do I rest now, now that I know I am enough for happiness?

all that we have learnt is that caring too much is an invitation to be abandoned and we ration our feelings as if we will run out of affection.

and ends with खैर

The clock strikes 12 and everybody suddenly becomes a dreamer-some sort of rebirth we promise ourselves,

while December comes knocking with all the reality checks (khair),

How weak of me is it to let my mind linger at the soft parts of your memories, or to trace the outlines of your laughs in stolen thoughts?

How do I reshape the hole in my chest that's still carved in the silhouette of you?

I hope it becomes so little that I almost don't notice.

or to trace the outlines of your laughs in stolen thoughts?

How do I reshape the hole in my chest that's still carved in the silhouette of you? I hope it becomes so little that I almost don't notice.

How do I let your ache be a passing storm and not a climate I settle into?

The end of the blade is not where miracles are born. The blade does not birth love.

The soft bend of the wrist, a pulse begging to be heard. or deeper, where the skin meets silence and

silence

meets

hope.

And through this bruise and bleeding,

And yet, amidst this inevitable surrender, I would like to hold on to you. In a world that teaches detachment, you feel like the anchor to everything real and everything beautiful.

Maybe, life is indeed about letting go. But maybe, love is about choosing what we hold sacred anyway.

Let time strip you of what you have. But when it comes to mastering the art of release,

I don't remember it leaving a goodbye note as I blow out the candles on my birthday cake.

maybe it left slowly without any dramatic exits

The day my father slams the door and never returns home or when my brother stops remembering my birthdays

is it the sound of my mother crying behind a locked door, sharp enough to slice through the walls and leave permanent scars on a soul too small to carry them. Did it blow a final kiss and seal the nail in the coffin they buried my childhood in?

you keep peeling yourself like an endless fruit- layer after layer, searching for the sweetest flesh to arrive. But, you are not meant for perfection. You are not a thesis submitted to fetch the perfect grades, you are the unfinished poem for which the heart craves in the lonely nights.

Growth doesn't bloom from self loathing, rather rot does.

life has taught us that joy must be earned. it comes only after proving our usefulness, fixing our flaws, or enduring enough pain.

must I wear the suffering like armor and show the endurance as my only identity?

what if you are enough as you are? What if happiness does not require pain as a down payment?

how weak of me is it to let my mind linger at the soft parts of your memories, or to trace the outline of your laughs in a stolen thought?

how do I reshape the hole in my chest that is carved in the silhouette of you? i hope it becomes so little that i stop tracing it on restless nights.

the sun cradles my soul and takes the hope out of my petals.

i trespass in my own skin, and I bloom out of ache.

my love leaves burn marks on my flesh, the tender parts that reaches for warmth.

i wilt in colors of survival, mistaken for serenity.

The sun kissed my mother's wrinkled skin, and I wonder how she could have flirted with the sun a little longer and danced in the rain without worrying about the cold.

i have seen how motherhood devoured her childhood and stitched around her child, calling it love. The world praises her selflessness, while she forgets how she had a self at all. How different her life would have been if I hadn't arrived, screaming into it, demanding to be held before she had a chance to hold herself.

And if I had a chance,

wanting it to hurt just enough to feel like home. believing love was supposed to ache, and if it doesn't break me, how is it real?

isn't my endurance a proof of how deeply I could love?

but, isn't this self harm in slow motion? to bleed long enough until you remember what it feels like to feel full.

maybe, I will pack my heart in a suitcase. call it a revolution, even.

is it the wrist, the curve, the vein?

Do I need to draw maps in red for someone to find their way to me?

Was my work simply meant to spill onto bathroom tiles?

It is not the blood that spills, but the ache that no one notices I was bleeding all along.

The lines on my palm, how can I make it destiny,

i loved you like a religion, a god I can never badmouth about, no matter how many times my hopes crumbled in your bare hands.

i loved you like a blind faith that lets me kneel at the altar that burns me.

i ignited my heart just to beat enough for the two of us, while yours was content to be warmed by a fire it never helped create.

but, i would still say your name like a hymn, carry your absence as a lesson in devotion,

and tell the world you were holy,