Nidhi

All of my poems in one place :)

“Love should be easy,” I find myself typing into the Substack search bar. I don’t know what to make of this. Because my first instinct a few years ago would’ve been to pick up a pen and my journal, disguised as an orange classmate notebook, or to create a new hidden Notion page and explore this thought. But now, I instantly look online. Substack, Reddit, Instagram, or even—the dreaded—ChatGPT—em-dash unintended— become sources I turn to before producing an original thought. I don’t know when it happened, but the internet has started to consume my life. Wanting to be well-informed and politically correct has made me succumb to echo chambers and doubt my own opinions. I’ve unknowingly started to crave validation for my thoughts and feelings, trusting a random F(23) over my own 23 years of lived experience.

Coming back to my thought exploration: Should love be easy? I think somewhere along the way, (was I taught this explicitly?) I started to believe that everything had to be earned through hardship. Today, I caught myself saying that I “accidentally got into” my relationship of one year. And when my friend asked me what about it was so accidental, I said I had done nothing to make it happen, adding that there was no long period of “yearning”. I think this idea comes to me from the multitude of romance novels and Instagram reels I consumed as a teenager. From reading a five-book series of romanticized miscommunication between the main characters, to watching endless edits of TV shows where characters spend a whole season (at least) avoiding speaking about their feelings. When put in plain words, nothing about these situations seems romantic in any sense of the word. But subconsciously— and a little consciously— I’ve sought the thrill of the chase, the yearning, and the mutual pining.

a slight sting is all i feel

when your words fall like darts

against the piece of my soul

that i bared to you

you turn another blind eye to me

and i make another excuse for you

another brick on the wall of defense

i've built around your name

should i beg for your love?

get down on my knees

and ask you, "please?"

please love me

like i love the sky

in all its hues and shades

please accept me

with my deformed clouds

and flashes of rain

but all i get are safety pins

piercing my skin

over and over again

you hurt me in ways

i can't seem to name

we seem to be doing just fine

until we're not

and you say our end came out of nowhere

i'm starting to run out of fingers

to count the amount of times

you've made my heart flutter in its cage.

a gentle brush of shoulders

or an insult mixed in with smiles

when you grab my arm

to stop me from doing something stupid

or you shake my hand

and hold it for a second too long.

the sound of my name from your lips

carries with it more weight

than the two syllables ever held

and i can't help but want to know you

to travel the paths that led you here

to read the map which points

towards the mountains you've climbed

and the rivers you've swam across.

i want to know what you've left behind

and the secrets you're hiding

i want to know

if you prefer moonlight

to bright yellow sunshine.

dogs or cats? pink or blue?

an endless list of questions

i want more

and more

like a book whose pages are yet to be filled

and i'll wait for you to write down your stories

내겐 넌 아침이란 걸 you woke me up

i am aching

for a life that is impossible

filled with only the best parts

of books and movies

of green fields and blue skies

of stolen kisses and whispered secrets

i want the pretty rain and soft snow

to return home to a lover's embrace

and food on the table

i want purple clouds and silver stars,

yellow trees and golden air.

i want the world to be rose-tinted and

tinged with summer

the smell of books mixed with that of the rain

white fluffy sheets and hot chocolate

glowing hair and swollen lips