Shruti Kaushal

there aren't many people I come across who impress me. a few of them do amuse me.

amusement may spark an interest. but it takes so much more to brew love.

tonight I don't yearn to be loved. tonight I crave the feeling of falling in love. there wasn't much I knew when I was eighteen, but I knew one thing right, you cannot fall in love, the true kind of love, if in that equation you are not loved back.

love is energy. that energy is an exchange. it is not one sided.

and tonight that's the love I seek. the man I will fall in love with. whose existence will make my heart happy, my soul calm, and my mind elated.

yes, that's what | look up to. just falling in love. its equal in its presence, in its intensity, in its gentleness. even though its one sided, I wish for it to stay. watching him from distance, his eyes were brown as freshly brewed espresso, nature was calm as virtue, aura hushed as midnight, and a face innocent as grace itself. how can even a soul like him exist?

I've felt the spark one too many times but it always flickered too soon, either extinguished if I was lucky or charred everything around me if I was not.

when did the spark get to evolve fully? never, not once.

but maybe now I know how to keep the spark evolved. by being the only one in love. no complains, no demands. the love I have isn't shared but just belongs to me. I can dream of anything, hope for anything and all of it belongs to me.

it might seem as if I'm running away, and avoiding his presence, but I really am. its the fluttering of heart, the goosebumps and a weird sensation deep inside my heart from which I'm trying to escape.

he may be the reason why I've started to smile again, and why not? his smile so contagious that I wish everyone had immunity, except me. but he is even the reason why my heart aches. and that's equally hurting.

so maybe I would gradually learn to live with it until I see him happy with someone else. or until l completely get over him, knowing that he deserves more. but there's one thing which I would still keep on humming inside my heart and I know I'm nobody to say this.

I was in your arms, thinking I belonged there; I figured it made sense, building me a fence; Building me a home, thinking I’d be strong there; But I was a fool, playing by the rules.

The gods may throw a dice, their minds as cold as ice; And someone way down here, loses someone dear.

If I were ever given a choice, to live an eternity with someone else or to spend only five more minutes in your presence, I know I would choose those five minutes with you.

Always.

I have often wondered how people can stop themselves from running toward someone they love, even if all they are given is a few stolen moments. How they can choose to wait for a someday that may never arrive, believing there will always be more time.

But there is no promise of more time.

It reminds me of the words often attributed to Buddha: “The trouble is, you think you have time.”

And perhaps that is the cruelest illusion we live with. We convince ourselves that there will be another chance, another conversation, another moment to say what we left unsaid. We keep waiting for life to become better, without realizing that while we are waiting for tomorrow, we are quietly losing today.

No one knows when life will change. No one knows if the moment they are hoping for will ever come.

And if it were me, I would have given up everything just to see you once more. Not even to ask for anything. Not to fix what was broken. Not to rewrite what happened.

Just to know that you were okay.

Just to hear your voice again.

Just to be close enough to remember what it felt like to belong somewhere.

Maybe, just maybe, to be in your arms again.

Even if it was only for the last five minutes.

How different our love was. How different our promises were. How different the ways we understood love were.

I loved you in a way that brought out every version of me, the softest parts, the strongest parts, and even the broken ones I tried so hard to hide. Loving you made me feel more alive than I had ever felt before. And maybe that is why, even now, I find myself chasing that feeling everywhere, searching for the person I was when I was with you.

My promises to you were never about changing you into someone you were not. They were about hoping you would become the kind of partner who would never make someone question their place in your life.

Someone who would never cry silently in the middle of the night wondering why she was not enough.

Someone who would never have to beg to be understood.

Someone who would never feel like her love needed to be proven again and again just to be chosen.

But your promises to me were different.

They asked me to hold onto myself. To not lose myself waiting for a love that might someday become easier. They asked me to believe that things would change, while a part of me quietly wondered how many years I would spend hoping to be loved in the way I always needed.

Sometimes I wonder how different we would have been if we had spent less time holding onto our wounds and more time understanding where they came from.

If we had tried to understand why we hurt each other instead of only remembering the ways we did.

Maybe we loved each other deeply, but we did not always know how to love each other gently.

All I ever wanted was a small life.

Not a perfect one.

Just one filled with love and respect. A life where dreams and hopes had a place to exist. A life that felt safe simply because you were in it.

A life where we could argue, but still find our way back to each other.

Where I could wake up to the sight of you, fall asleep to the sound of your voice, and carry the feeling of you with me even after you left the room.

A little life.

But maybe, for us, even that was too much to ask.

I spent so much time searching for love in your eyes every time I looked at you. I kept finding pieces of it and convincing myself they were enough. Somewhere deep inside, I believed you loved me.

And I loved you enough to fight for us.

Enough to forgive.

Enough to stay.

Enough to give everything I had, even if it meant breaking myself in the process.

I would have given anything to be with you again.

Even if it was only for the last five minutes.

Until one day, I realized something I was not ready to accept.

The love I kept searching for in your eyes.

was never yours.

It was mine.

For me, it has always been the smallest things, the ones the world dismisses as trivial, yet somehow, they hold everything.

It is in finding reasons to see me, in creating excuses just to hear my voice, in seeking glimpses of me as though they are enough to soften an entire day.

It is walking beside me, hand in hand, our steps falling into rhythm without thought, like something meant, not forced.

It is in his foolishness, the kind he wears lightly, only to draw a smile from me.

In the gentle way he tucks my hair back when my words tumble out in restless chaos, never silencing me, never dimming my excitement, never asking me to be less.

It is in the way he notices, the little things I hold dear, the quiet pieces of my world that matter to no one else, yet to him, they are sacred because they are mine.

It is in the way my tears become his ache, in how he gathers me into his arms and holds on until l am ready to let go.

In the patience with which he steadies my overthinking, reassuring me, again and again, without weariness.

It is in how he turns to me, not just in joy, but in the smallest inconveniences, as though I am both his refuge and his return.

In how, in loving me, I become his home.

And maybe, just maybe, it is in the quiet ways he chooses me, over and over, even if it means changing, growing, becoming softer because a life without me feels unimaginable to him.

A love that is not loud, yet deeply consuming. Not demanding, yet effortlessly constant.

So yes, for me, it has always been the little things.

Addiction, a state of compulsive engagement of a substance, despite harmful consequences. While addiction to drugs can be fatal, addiction to humans can be even more so. The withdrawal symptoms, though similar: racing heartbeat, shortness of breath, anxiety, agitation, insomnia, restlessness, sweating and chills all over your body. But, the duration differs. Drug withdrawal may last weeks to months. However, withdrawal from human attachment can span months, years, or in some cases, a lifetime.

You write, talk, listen and think about them in an attempt to release all the pent-up emotions, but nothing seems to alleviate the pain. The more you try to escape, the more you find yourself trapped in thoughts of them. And this is when your body responds- an intense, stabbing pain your chest, as if a sharp blade has pierced your heart, you feel the sweat trickling from the back of your head, down your neck, and all along your spine. Your stomach folds and unfolds mercilessly. It becomes difficult to breathe, and your heart races in an attempt to compensate for that suffocation. And this is the moment when you stretch your hand out, yearning to return to that person.

Mirtazapine, Citalopram and Ativan are a group of antidepressants that work by increasing the amount of mood-enhancing chemicals called noradrenaline and serotonin in your brain. These chemicals seem insignificant, but they would help you survive this phase. So what exactly did you do? To overcome one addiction, you fell into another. The former case abused you, but the latter you would.

You force yourself to do daily tasks like eating, bathing, talking and even sleeping, yet, it all feels like mere existence. You won't recognize the person you've become: either speaking for hours on trivial matters or just remaining silent in a crowd. You would either crave every food imaginable, or sometimes starve yourself. Either sleeping for hours, avoiding the world, or would stay up all night just to wait for another chance at your destruction.

Allow yourself the freedom the cry, so give yourself a good one stat, and random loud laughs prn. In the end, its your emotions fighting against the addiction. You are so enriched with it, that no amount of emotional abuse or loot can ever be enough to prevent you from feeling. A person who always gives love, can never be deprived of it.

This phase, though temporary, will leave an indelible lesson. You may be scared to get attached to another human again, but in time, you will heal. The key lies in recognizing that your worth is not defined by the addiction you overcame or the one you fell into, but it’s in finding the strength you gained from the journey.