siddhi

December opened her door two days ago and all I can see inside her house is the same month, another year; All I can think about is how the good bye was not long enough. It was this: you standing there, holding the girl’s some other girl’s favourite flowers and the voice in my head telling me it was an honest mistake, because what else could it be. It was someone else’s favourite restaurant, a memorized coffee order from another cold date night, another face behind your closed eyes, repeated words from a failed story you could not close. It was me, slowly fading from your life, and it was you, not turning back to ask. It's a new December now but I think it might always be december and I will always wait outside the door I closed, to see if you ever turn back.

"Life is not a poem" but humans are. Every single human being is a poem. They walk around with their own lives tied to so many others, all of them feel such different things on the same day, they could be in the same crowd living entirely different lives, they're on the same train going to completely different places for reasons that are worlds apart. Maybe the person you bumped into today is getting married tomorrow. Maybe the person who sold you flowers the day before is going through the worst heartache of his life. There are so many stories in so many people and if that's not poetry.

Part of the reason why being seventeen feels so much like the world ending is because we spend years romanticizing this one age. Movies and books and stories will tell you about seventeen year old characters who saved the world, overthrew the government with their friends, did something permanent and beautiful, while falling in love with their soulmate. You wait for all that, but turns out seventeen is a mess. Half your friends aren't real. Maybe you have a partner who hates you or you've never had your first kiss. And that's okay because seventeen year olds are literally babies.

Qays spent ages writing about Layla. In his poems, she was otherworldly, gorgeous, and perfect. When the king heard of his poems and the woman in them, he ordered for Layla to be brought before him. When he saw her, he was angry and disappointed. He had expected the most beautiful woman, but to him, Layla was plain and nothing so great. The concept that if you are not Qays, you will not understand why she is Layla. There's poetry in this story.