LOVE AND POETRY

Strangely, it was not love at first sight
When I first saw you
I only noticed how short you were
How ordinary you were
Just like any other girl
not repulsive
but ordinary....

But slowly you grew on me
till you have become a part of me
every breath I take
every step I take
you are always with me
I shudder at the thought
when, by chance,
you were not with me
I am the body
You are the soul.

Your infectious smile
was the first thing I noticed
May be because it was a contrast to...
my dour, unsmiling self
When you smile
it seems suddenly
as if life is wonderful
You are the exorcist of my gloom
and dark ghosts of my past.
You smile
and I too smile.
You taught me how to laugh
That is why I love you
even after twenty years

It seems like
I met you just yesterday.
I long for you, my love.
Not your body,
No! No!
Our love is much more than that.
I want to be with you.
Just sit and watch you
as you smile and talk.
May be once in a while
I feel like holding your hand
Just briefly.
To assure myself
That you are not a pleasant dream
that you are with me.

I guess..
people would say this is love.

I had given my heart and soul to you
All I wanted was your love
Nothing more
I would have tolerated seeing you
In another man's arm
All I wanted was
You say to me, just once,
I love you.

But it was not to be
You left me
Broken...
Crying inside,
My heart bled
It yearned to scream loudly
To release the poison
which filled me

years later
I can think of you
without bitterness
I have perhaps grown up
But the heart inside me
which once was tender
is now hard

I understand
after all these years
maybe I was foolish
That it was just infatuation.
That maybe you never liked me.

But I can never forget
for the rare few moments
when your eyes glittered
when you looked at me
If that was not love
what was it?

No, no
I know I was right
It was love.
But you chose to reject my love
Why?
Maybe you were more practical.
But love nad practicality
can never be together

What you rejected
was a marvellous thing
called love.
A rare chance
which is given only to a few
to live their lives in love

Maybe you were wrong
Maybe I was not so impractical
I wanted to possess
and give to you too
the power of love

It would have changed my life
To overcome my weakness
As only love has that power
But I did not get it
You too, did not get it

As you pretend to be happy
with your worldly husband
You will perhaps feel sometimes
the twinges of your inner voice
That you lost the chance
to be fully you

As only love
enables one
to be fully himself
to be truly happy

You lost the chance
It is too late
You have the mundane responsiblities
of a mother and wife
I am just a hardened shell
of my former self
who could love

We both are old
Next life, perhaps?

There are times in every life
when one feels alone
all relations are robbed of the cloak
and you see the real face of the relationship,
based on self interest
no love
no feelings
Just naked give-and-take

You despair at the loneliness
which comes when this happens
you feel afraid, alone in the world
afraid of your weaknesses
Fear that others will use it against you.
You feel sick inside.
The veneer of happiness disappears
with the awareness
that you are alone in the world.

The world appears like a jungle,
moments ago it seemed like a paradise
Now it is as if you are in a deep wild forest
and you are fearful, cowering.
You yearn for love, for understanding
But it is not there
when you see the real faces of people around you
be it mother, father, sister, brother,
friends, wife, lover....anybody.

There are moments in life
when dark and frightening shadows
frighten me.
Shadows of the ghosts of childhood
I had thought I had rid off.
But they live
and haunt me.
During such moments
I am a little child again.
A frightened child
who was small once,
defenceless,
squashed, mauled by circumstances.
The mangled remains of the child
is me today.

The mantra of life is
that life is a bitch.
A impractical fool like me
refused to accept this
for a long, long time.
But my obstinacy was useless.

Life has taught me to accept it.
I had protested
to myself
as there was no one else to listen.

I do not hate myself
but why am I
like this?
I had thought that
I had got a raw deal.
That it was unfair
what had happened to me.
That justice would come come one day.

But it never came.
The world moved on.
I understood that
no one cared a damn.
I recollected then the saying
"if there is nothing you can do
when getting raped
then lie back and enjoy it".

Life is a bitch.
But it hurts me
to accept the fact.
So I write these lines
not because I hope that
someone will read and understand
but because it helps me
release the poison that is inside me.

I remember the day she said "no".
I had offered everything I had.
My body, my soul,
my self esteem.
Everything.
And as I stood there
weak, open and vulnerable,
she said "no".

She had been good to me.
Smiled smiles
I thoughts were only for me.
I remember her first kiss,
and the first time we made love.

But at that one second
I understood.
All those moments were worth nothing.
I was worth nothing.
May be she had just played with me
for fun and frolic.
May be I was not man enough for her.
But what do I tell myself?
How do I heal the bloody wound
she gave me
when she said "no"?

I have cried,
nay, yelled without sound;
yelled in anguish.
But the wound till this day remains
and festers all the time.

Posted by Deepraj Jadeja at