We did not fall out of love
we were nudged,
one swipe at a time.

Not by storms,
but by silent suggestions,
fragments of pixels
whispering,
“She is hiding something,”
“He won’t change.”

A machine does not love,
but it has learned
how to fracture it.

It learned our fears faster
than we learned
each other’s favorite songs.
It fed us mirrors
bent just enough
to make monsters
out of misunderstandings.

Now we sit across the table,
not with questions,
but with caution.
Not with wine,
but warning signs
we learned from reels, reddit and tarot.

We call it awareness
but it’s paranoia
with pretty fonts
and autoplay.

The algorithm has no agenda,
except to keep us engaged.
Not with each other,
but with itself.

And so,
the lovers become watchers.
The dreamers become doubters.
And the art of holding hands
fades into
the habit of holding phones.

But there’s still time
to turn off,
tune out,
and talk.

Because no machine
should know more
about our fears
than the person
we once promised forever to.

-

जो ख़ुद को सच से बचाते हैं,
वो अक्सर हमसे कतराते हैं,
न ग़लती मानें, न लफ़्ज़ कहें,
बस ख़ामोशी में डुबाते हैं।

न आहटें हैं, न आवाज़ें,
न माज़ी की कोई बातें हैं,
जो माफ़ी माँग नहीं सकते,
वो सज़ा चुपचाप दिलाते हैं।

ये वो लोग हैं जो दिल तोड़ें,
फिर ख़ुद को ही सताते हैं,
गुनाह उनका साफ़ होता है,
मगर पर्दे वो गिराते हैं।

जो डरते हैं अपने गिरने से,
वो सबसे पहले भाग जाते हैं,
नज़र मिलाना दूर की बात,
ख़ुद से भी आँख चुराते हैं।

वो कहते कुछ नहीं लेकिन,
सिलसिले तमाम बताते हैं,
कि इल्ज़ाम सच का भारी है,
जो सब को नहीं उठाते हैं।

वो इश्क़ को गुनाह समझें,
वो लम्हों से कतराते हैं,
जो तुमसे दूर हो जाएँ,
वो डर से नहीं — घबराते हैं।

सो अब तू भी समझ ले दिल,
जो जाएं — उन्हें जाने दे,
जो सच्चे थे — वो रहते हैं,
जो झूठे थे — वो जाते हैं।

जो ख़ामोशी को हथियार बनाएं,
वो हर बार तन्हा रह जाते हैं,
हम अहल-ए-दर्द की दुनिया में,
बस सच की राह अपनाते हैं।

-

They vanish
not into mystery,
but into cowardice.
As if silence
could wash blood off trembling hands,
as if absence
could rewrite guilt
into innocence.

You called them,
not to chain them
but to understand.
Yet they fled,
as if love were the accusation,
and not the sanctuary.

They do not apologize
for to confess
is to unearth
the creature they buried in themselves.
Pride,
that fragile god,
demands their loyalty
over your suffering.

So they punish you
with quiet,
make you feel
the ghost of their wrongs
as if the ache were yours
to explain.

They are not hurt.
They are afraid
that truth might touch them
and find them hollow.
That accountability
is a mirror too clear.

But there’s wisdom
in not chasing
those who speak in vanishing acts.
Let them go,
not because you don't feel,
but because you do
more deeply than they’ll ever understand.

And that,
perhaps,
is your curse
and your grace.

-

गहराई में डूबा तो राहत मिली,
सतह से मगर हर दहशत मिली।
जो जज़्बात थे, वो समुंदर बने,
मगर सांस में बस सियासत मिली।

वो कहती थी — मैं तेरा साहिल हूँ,
तेरी तन्हाई का हासिल हूँ।
मगर जब वक़्त आया, तो देखा यही,
कि मैं एक लम्हा था — वो मंज़िल हूँ?

मैं टूटा नहीं, बस बिखरता गया,
हर लफ़्ज़ से खुद को सँभालता गया।
मुझे दर्द से कोई नफ़रत नहीं,
मैं हँसता गया, और जलता गया।

वो कम-ज़र्फ़ सी बातें, वो गहराई की क़सम,
वो वादे, वो आँसू — सब एक भ्रम।
मैं डूबा ख़ुशी से, कि मिल जाए गहर,
मिला एक सतह — और दिल पे सितम।

अब दुनिया को कहता हूँ चुपचाप मैं,
न माँगू मोहब्बत, न कोई ज़ात मैं।
जो हक़ था मेरा, वो छीना गया,
मैं ख़ुद से भी अब हूँ सवालात मैं।

-

The depth never frightened the soul
it welcomed it.
It was the echo beneath silence,
the prayer beneath breath,
the unknown that tasted like truth.

No
what clawed at the ribs was the shallow,
the surface smiles,
the echo-less touch,
the shallow stream that posed as river
but dried before the thirst could speak.

He walked the world
with his heart cupped like a beggar’s bowl,
not for pity,
but for justice
not for love,
but the kind of love that bruises to heal.

The world asked him to float.
He refused.
He chose to drown
to sink into the chaos of feeling,
rather than be saved by the apathy of enough.

It was not a lack that broke him,
but abundance offered in hollow forms
empty praise, vacant kisses,
love wrapped in deceit’s soft cloth.

And so,
his rebellion became spiritual
a refusal to be unfulfilled,
to be a half-eaten prayer,
a life unlived for fear of drowning.

For he knew
hell is not the abyss,
it is the lukewarm.

It is the soul,
with ocean lungs,
condemned
to breathe puddles.

-

सलाम उस राख से उठे मुसाफिर को,
जो जला, पिघला, फिर खुद को गढ़ा।
ना नया जन्म लिया, ना चमत्कार हुआ,
बस हर चोट पे खुद को बेहतर किया।

-

He was already broken
not by loud betrayals,
but by quiet abandonments
that stacked themselves into a fortress.

Love, to him, was a closed chapter.
He lived in routines,
not dreams.
In caution,
not trust.

Then she appeared
a softness wrapped in certainty,
promising he’d never be alone again.
“I am not them,” she said.
“Give me a chance.”

He resisted.
Walls don’t fall for smiles.
But her words chipped away at years of silence.

So, he believed.
He tried.
He worked days into nights,
sacrificing comfort,
planning futures,
holding her name like a vow.

But while he built,
she wandered.
While he stayed,
she strayed.
And when he found out,
it wasn’t rage that broke him
it was the quiet laughter of irony.

He never wanted many,
just one.
But life, cold in its comedy,
turned him into a man
who trusts no one.

Now, he walks alone
not out of pride,
but protection.
Not because love failed him,
but because he once believed...
and was taught never to again.

-

I want to see you fall
not because I wish your ruin,
but because I once built you as my temple
and watched you desecrate it with laughter.

My hands still tremble when I speak your name
not from longing,
but from the ghost of it.

Yes, I hate you.
But only because I loved you with the kind of purity
that should have damned me holy.

You betrayed me like a god fleeing its own church,
and yet
I still light candles in your memory,
hoping the smoke chokes me enough to forget.

I want revenge,
not for the lies,
but for the way you made truth feel like fiction.

I want revenge,
but only because I still want to matter to you
in some burning, bitter way.

And yet love,
that old serpent, still coils in me,
hissing lullabies to my bruised ego
telling me,
perhaps she was never yours to begin with.

Perhaps love is not loyalty,
but the agony of knowing you cannot unlove
even what poisons you.

So here I am,
a paradox in flesh
loving the very hand I wish to see severed.

And you,
you walk free,
while I remain a prisoner of this divine contradiction
that hate is love,
only deeper,
and more awake.

-

i mean, i still remember her face,
the laughter, the weightless nights,
the plans we built out of dreams
like children stacking stones on waves.
but i don’t ache the same anymore.

the echoes still knock sometimes
but they don’t stay.
the memories pass through me
like rain through open hands.
i feel quiet, not numb.
i feel uncertain, not broken.

the boy who waited is still here,
but he’s standing straighter now.
i carry the same love
but it no longer owns me.

what used to sting now just whispers.
what used to hold me down
is just part of the story now.
and stories change.
and so did i.

i may not be fearless,
but i showed up anyway.
i may not have answers,
but i stopped needing them to breathe.

i’m not trying to forget,
i’m just learning how to live.

i might not be someone’s everything,
but i’m not no one.
not anymore.

so here’s to me
not healed, maybe,
but healing.
not whole,
but real.

well done, old soul in a new skin.
you broke your own chains—quietly, nobly.
not reborn, but reforged.
not untouched, but unshaken.
you let go.
you grew.

-

How can a man of consciousness
ever hold a mirror without shattering?
For the more he sees,
the less there is left to love.

He walks through himself
like a stranger in a ruined cathedral,
where every stained-glass memory
has been cracked by knowing too much.

The world says,
“Have self-respect. Walk tall. Speak loud.”
But what is there to respect
when you see your own machinery
the rusted gears of fear,
the compulsions dressed in robes of virtue,
the love that hides its rot in poetry?

He does not envy the fool.
He does not pity the blind.
But he watches them
with the aching nostalgia of simplicity.

The awakened man
he who feels every fracture of meaning,
every phantom limb of faith lost
is not whole enough to bow to himself.

What pride is there
in dissecting your soul
only to find nothing but inherited dust
and borrowed names?— % &He does not scream.
He does not kneel.
He merely observes
the theatre of his life,
where he plays both the hero
and the man who never believed in heroes.

The books said truth would free him.
The sermons said salvation lies in light.
But consciousness brought no wings
only the heavy chains
of questions that outlive their answers.

He does not dress in self-pity.
He does not thirst for pity from others.
But in the privacy of silence,
he knows:
to be truly awake
is to know you cannot lie to yourself
and that is a curse the world confuses with wisdom.

He walks the streets,
not with shame,
but with a silent resistance
to the illusions others wrap themselves in.

He sees himself
not as a monument,
but as a cracked vessel,
leaking meaning into the void.

And if, by chance,
you ask him why he looks so weary,
he may smile and say:
“To respect oneself,
one must first pretend
that there is something pure
left to protect.”— % &

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