battery dead

i'm not even
sure
i know
how to love;
not anymore

i think..
all that i had
you took
with you

and now..
now there's
nothing..
nothing but
a you
shaped hole

where there
was once
sunshine

Have you ever been madly in love?

The old man broke my reverie.

On the long faded green bench white with bird droppings
he was peering at me through his silver grey beard
looking oddly out of place in that college squire park
where only the dreamers at the prime of youth
would sit between classes to exchange love notes
and steal a kiss when the passion couldn't be reined in.

Have you ever been madly in love? he repeated,
and then as if growing impatient by my silence
mumbled, pausing between words,
like they stung him like thorns
it extracts a price been paying all my life
living with a void no other woman could fill
a commitment that breeds only pain
yet makes me insanely boastful
of being madly in love.

It was recess hour and the benches were being filled up.

How many, I wondered, would still hold hands
when the classes are over.

to the girl who takes words out of people's minds
who speaks in metaphors, touches thousands of hearts
to the girl who aches for her prince to find
her poetry where it bled in the sea of rose quartz

to the girl who lived for two decades today
to the one who loves to the moon, back and around
the one who sits at the back of the cafe
writing for people whom she surrounds

happiest birthday my dear mermaid of poetry
you've been staying strong for twenty years now
it takes time to be the great person you want to be
you just have to keep your head unbowed

and things may be hard, may be tougher than this
and deadlines will keep trying to break you down
when the time comes you think you won't ever experience bliss
remember you're a mermaid, you can never drown

you've already been living for 7,300 days
eighty season changes in mermaid's time
you have survived all that crazy life chase
i think, my darling, you will be fine.