they are painful, but
wounds attract healing.

healing leaves scars.

the pain goes,
but scars stay insecure.

you moved on,
leaving me ugly.

-

take me on the longest drive,
through haunted tunnels
and rare, dim streetlights.
tuning into 93.5 on the radio,
while i stare out the window.

let me be the passenger of guilt,
while you keep your eyes on the road.

-

even though, i don’t want this to end,
at least bring me a comma. a pause.

-

i never trust mirrors.
it shows me what my eyes want to see,
not what is truly there.

-

heartbreak is
the final stop of incompleteness
so i wander,
like i’m lost
between the roads,
between the lies

-

it’s been two years.

if i think about it,
it feels longer.
if i don’t,
it feels like yesterday.

-

on my way back,
i don’t care if i miss the bus.
there’s always another.

i’m never late to go home.

-

every time it rains,
i search for words to describe it.
once, i called it love.
another day, a crying sky.
sometimes not the shower itself,
but the flowers it saved.
a mask for my tears,
sometimes just a response
from the universe
i keep chatting to.

naming it my emotion,
what i feel in the moment,
instead of really listening to it.

-

my brain.
not a busy delhi market.
a birthplace.
a graveyard, nothing like banaras.

overthinking.
thoughts so rushed,
you don’t even get a moment
to mourn them.

-

there’s everything to write about, yet nothing.
i could write about the couple sitting at the next table,
or i could write about the empty chair in front of me.

-