A certain peace envelops
The second hour of the night,
A little mellow, a little electric,
The ratios positioned just right

I'm sure this chai I'm dreamily sipping on,
Would not seem as delectable in the day
As it is right now, with its caffeine
Making all my senses with abandon, sway

That's the thing about this hour, I say,
Its still tranquility, its silence and calm
is merely superficial; if you're up this time,
you're part of a storm

A simmering storm, with a quiet surface,
and a whirlpool of life concealed within,
A psychedelic fiesta booming with
A myriad of emotions beneath the brim

Indeed, Silence turns Audible,
Colors turn Tangible,
Misery turns Defeatable,
Loneliness turns Affable

Music begins to make all the more sense,
When freed from the cacophony of the day,
In fact, the night will tune a sweeter melody
If you'll put those headphones away

And listen! Listen to the solitude,
The slow tick-tock of the clock,
The distant horn of a car somewhere,
The occasional howl of a street dog,

The rustle of leaves as they dream in their slumber,
The whisper of the wind as it strolls outside,
The sound of Papa's snoring the sole interruption,
To the fluid rhythm of the night.

A certain contenment surrounds me tonight,
As I bid goodbye to the second hour revelry,
Where my sentiments turned to words,
And words turned into my long departed but duly returned,
*Poetry

It kills-
Knowing I'm the pain
flickering inside
your eyes.

Return she will
As the evening draws nigh
For now, Mama Bird,
Let her fly

Whirlwind romances aren't
Meant to be clung on to.
You ride the wave,
And when the peak is through,

You have to deeply inhale,
And no matter how distraught
you may be, jump instantly
With no second thoughts.

But I forgot to open my eyes,
When I did, I was all alone,
The ****** had ebbed and
You, my darling, were long gone,

Leaving me entangled forever
In this dark trough of gloom,
Where time is slow and evil
And the ghost of silence looms.

Whirlwind romances aren't
Meant to be clung on to.
I wish I'd remembered,
And jumped off with you.

I think what he felt was beyond love,
For, after braving multiple imprisonments in hell
That she shamelessly put him through,
All he said to her was "I wish you well"

I warned him I was poison,
That my womb spouted lava,
That there was fire between my legs
And it spared no visitor,
Yet he laughed, the fool,
And the proud, vain loon,
Did not pause a moment before
Barging in unwanted,
Like he had, into ninety-nine
other forbidden heavens,
Eager to add a tale more of dominance,
To the ninety-nine others
He would proudly tell,
Only to emerge- consumed,
scorched, devoured by my fumes.
Hadn't I told him I was hell?

The photo of her high tea                            
With its flowery cups,                                  
Its cookies and scones,                                
Arranged in aesthetic order,                      
Filtered to perfection and                            
Posted online soon after,                            
Is her current most-liked.                              

The scene of him frailly
Scouring the waste truck,
His skin invaded by bones,
And bathed in gloomy odour,
Painted with deprivation and
Destitute disorder,
Doesn't make it to the spotlight.

*The High Tea meanwhile, earns another Like

She confessed that she wished
Only to bide some time,
So I threw my watch away and
Gifted her all of mine.

I wondered
What was that sudden empty feeling,
When I turned to realise that
Oh! You went away already, leaving
your absence to stare at me
Through the diamonds of our wedding ring.

Okay, so you waltz right in
Wearing this summery white shirt
Slightly but tantalisingly
See-through, and if that wasn't enough,
You do your little forearm display show
By intelligently folding your sleeves
And then you expect me to be careful
Because you don't want a crease?
Darling, you can't have the best of all worlds.
So, while I do my thing,
Excuse me, please.

We dressed her in delicate silk
And gave her glittering jewels to wear,
A crown with rubies on the top,
And flowers for her fragrant hair

We placed wings on her dainty shoulders,
Crystal heels on her slender feet,
We draped her in beauty head to toe,
Gave her the shape of all our fantasies,

So that when we picked at her flawless skin,
And tore off her silken gowns,
When we pulled at her rose-petalled hair
And her lovely stone-studded crown,

When we chased her into darkness,
As she tripped on manacled heels,
When we watched her try to fly but fail
With bejewelled wings that were too heavy,

We could baffle her, confuse her, fool her
Into believing it was not our fault,
For we had revered and worshipped her,
Could the devotee be responsible for her fall?

Oh not at all!

She was too beautiful,
She radiated too much,
She was too pristine,
Easily dirtied on touch,
She was too striking,
She was too bold,
To not be stripped off of all that glitter
And all that shameless gold.

I love you and there's no if or but about it,
I love you like I've known all my life how to,
Like I was born with the feeling oxygenating
my blood, my very core,
I love you even when I try to deny it,
I think about you even if I am thinking about something else,
You're always there, sometimes in background,
sometimes in foreground, but you're always there, why?
Because I love you!
With you I leave all the road maps behind,
With you I don't go according to "plan",
You take my plans and set them haywire,
Jazz them up into something unexpected and
Phenomenal, you take me to the road I would never
have taken, but I do, because that road has
You.

Sometimes there's such pain
As can't be healed by
The carefree jest of a dear friend
Or the earnest caress of mother,
Sometimes, when the pain
Is caused by those closest,
And there's no one left to turn to,
I realise,
It's only Allah,
And my Poetry...
Only Poetry,
And my Allah,
Ever-steady, ever-soothing,
Unfailingly right,
Always on the healing side.
Always there.

Multiverses infinite,
Endless permutations
Harmonise together into
Fortuitous combinations
Of planets and stars,
Of fluid minutes and hours,
Zoning time into a ceaseless warp,

Yet, the sole instance I ever achieved
Absolute **Mehfooziyat
Was in that stationary speck of a moment,
When my heart lay idle in your arms.

I lie with my arms folded on
A white sheet spread over an iron bed.
My bulging eyes sit over my reddened face,
I am ruined; I am dead.

Then I see them, they’ve come for me!
Clothed in crystal, flowing white.
They look down at me, coldly,
And I look back at their unblinking eyes.

I’d waited for it; I’d fought for it-
And now that time has arrived,
Of my freedom, abandonment,
My true birth, after this fickle life.

But then I see more men around me,
Invisible behind their aprons and masks.
They remove the killer rope from my neck,
And a finger traces along its mark.  

And so, I lie on the iron bed,
Lifeless, but not soul-less,
Surrounded by Angels and humans,
Both of whom had arrived on the occasion of my death.

Take me home! I lift my translucent arms
And plead to the Messengers of Heaven.
I don’t want to stay and see my body being
Split into halves, divided into fragments.

“But how can we, so easily,
Rid you from your life?
You made the mistake of doing that,
Of which no man has been given the right!”

As the Angels speak, the scalpel starts
To burrow into my skin.
Deftly my flesh is peeled away,
Revealing my organs of vitality within.

My heart no longer beats.
My blood no longer flows.
My lungs no longer fill with air.
My anxiety to leave suddenly grows.

O Angels from the bountiful Heavens,
You do not know how exhausting life can be!
I’d got tired of breathing and gave up,
Because God too had given up on me.

So, liberate me now and take me
From where I came and to where I belong,
Where questions are asked and justice is done,
Where the rights are weighed against the wrongs.

A hand enters my open chest,
And forcibly pulls out my heart.
And just then, the Angels too relent,
And wrench my soul and body apart.

Angels and humans scavenge over me,
On my spirit and flesh they together feed.
But I’m happy, because morsel by morsel,
From the shackles of life, I’m being freed.

*I’m finally out, I look back slowly,
They’re stripping my face off my skull.
I look ahead, and float away in thin air,
No sign of my existence remaining on the Earth.

I found myself rooting for the tiny ant
The spider was trying to trap in its webbed snare,
No thoughts did I spare before swiping a finger,
and helping it make a dramatic escape

As I looked at the spider, left food-less,
Rearrange itself in its meticulous net,
I wondered at the strangeness of this
Little world of ours, and also its pointlessness

We make it seem so rosy and pretty,
Embellish it with garlands of emotions,
But underneath lies the truth of its existence,
Made up of cruelty, chaos and commotion

The Designer painted it beautifully,
But gave it finer embroideries of pain,
He threw in an entire cosmos together,
And arranged it into a food chain

Compartments and more compartments,
Of colour and country and gender galore,
Hustle and bustle to stay put in a labile balance,
That is forever tipped at the cusp of war

We fool ourselves with the sham that our lives
Depend on friendships and love and such stunts,
When what we are, if we think about it,
Is a part, of one gigantic hunt

A hunt for alimentation,
And monetary satisfaction,
And physical satiation,
Does being conditional deserve glorification?

I wonder if I've turned into a permanent cynic,
It may very well be just a phase,
Though the spider would be cursing me for sure,
Not too romantic it is, sabotaging a prey!

Saw her after years,
Clinking her glass as
Everyone roared "cheers"
To somebody's happiness
They cared two dimes about.
Marvelling over how her
Hair seemed to finally
Stay in place,
How she did eventually learn
To suffer high heels with grace,
And trying hard to not be
Intimidated by the hint of rouge
Adorning her face, I managed
A "What are you doing here!"
Expecting her to reply in some
Accent or language as fancy
As she'd become,
But oh! Musically she spoke
In a manner as matter of fact,
As nonchalant, as uncautious
As before,
"You know, just pretending to be pretentious!"

Oh you wicked little rebel, I thought,
Gently tugging at her hair,
Loosening one curl,
Try as you might to pretend to pretend!
You're way too REAL for this world.

My head is nodding off into sleep,
My mind, shutting down for the night,
Yet the heart is vigorous, up and about,
Says it has poetry that I should type.

I know there's nothing tonight-

I feel no love or heartache at the moment,
No cause for gloom or celebration,
No nagging regrets or piercing guilt,
No urgent philosophical questions.

Yet the heart presses on,
And I've no choice but to let go,
And ease it with the calmness that only poetry brings,
Its verses acting as the best placebo.

After all, a writer's ***** is an impatient one,
And the only way to calm its creative agitation,
Is to feed it with words, ideas and emotion,
Woven together into a recipe of poetic composition.

Do it now,
Light a match, set my heart aflame,
The wait is too slow, love,
I need an end to this game,
Where i know the hopes
Are bleak for my victory,
So do it swiftly in one go,
Light a match and burn away this agony.

Like dew drop-crusted petals
Of a plump red rose,
One curved layer after another
Guides me in her flower unexplored,
She sits cross-legged and wonders
Who conditioned us to associate
The Rose with Love,
It must have been you darling,
Incarnated century after century
Flooding the lover's heart with the
Scent of your intoxicating being,
The red pouring into the eyes of the poet,
Creating volumes that will till eternity
Sing praises of how even the Rose
Bows down to your Rose,
Of how the Heavens tell tales
About your enchanted Gardens,
And in this century my dear,
I am the one blessed
To have been driven insane,
Dedicating flower after flower to your name

Never really mastered the art of intrigue,
I sometimes wish I had that skill,
Of treading light,
Of being the diva
Surrounded by a mist of aura,
Controlled in laughter,
Calculatedly revealing,
Measuredly unraveling
Her inner self.
I stomp in love,
I bare it all in love,
I laugh with abandon,
I shout with animation,
I cry in immoderation,
I never really learnt to leave
Anything for the imagination,
And it's the greatest gamble,
The toughest game,
To tear your heart out and
hold it in your palm,
And show it to them,
Look, this is how I beat,
Not many can deal
with someone this real.

Vermilion spread across
her forehead, like clouds
over the dusky sky,
Love perspired,
and frantically rained,
Her Earth quietly sighed.

Turquoise and silver
Gently touch her skin,
A little glitter rubs off on her,
Igniting me within,
Delicate stones twinkle
Like her innocent eyes,
She needs no adornment
She only has to smile,
Yet, on her wrist,
I affectionately wound
Turquoise and silver,
To tell her, when I'm not around-
*I love you
I love you
I love you.

As the redness of the skies envelops life
As the day stands on the brink of dying
As existence knows that, it is time to retire
I know that it is time to step into my world.

The shutters of shops go rattling down,
The chirps of birds cease, with them heading off to the nests of comfort
The honking of cars grows louder, as the desires to go back home increase
But I am restless, dying to go, in a world away from where I live.

That world houses my being, my real self, the real “me”
I am in control there; no one restricts my expressions,
No one perturbs me with hypocritical rules, ideals and regulations,
But for the wind, which comes in sometimes, to blow in those moral handcuffs-
Which are weak, but they hurt.

But once I stop that wind of limitations, I sprout wings…
To fly away with their help, and attain freedom!
Freedom from what I am forced to do, freedom from what I am forced to think.
The day has died, but I am alive, liberty at my disposal!

You might say that my world is nothing but a virtual game,
Made just by the cards of my imagination
And sure, this world falls apart as soon as daylight enters my bedroom window,
This light blinds me; it shouts at me, that my other self is short lived, as good as dead.

But though my spirit comes alive only in the dark, hidden from all,
Though my inner self lightens up, but not for long,
I am happy that I have the courage to at least release my true expressions,
I am happy that my day awakens, quenching all my needs…
As the night goes on.

It's been a year since I tasted the sea
And let its vast strength wash over me

It's been a year since the mischievous sand
Tickled my bare feet, slipped out of my hands

And the sun kissed my starved skin,
Marking it all over, illuminating me from within,

If only I could close my eyes and be there for just a moment, if not more,
I'd lay myself, carefree, unarmed, vulnerable, at the endless sea shore

And as the sparkling waves would splash over my thirsty soul,
I'd become one with water, sun and sand- for just a moment, if not more.

Too many expert voices lay a claim on your shape,
You are either too full, or
You have gone too far,
Too many moulds get thrusted at your face,
To some you resemble a pear,
But they feel your should look more double cherry,
And whichever fruit you succeed in turning into,
You still, are a tad too hairy
But then does anyone ever tell you,
That sometimes ice cream will be the only answer
And that is just fine?
That a bedtime prayer can be enough night-time routine,
Which needn't include expensive lotions and creams,
That you need fats as well as you need protein,
As also each little gift that Nature crafted lovingly
For this marvel of a creation that is your Being-
So that your skin is fed and living,
And your knees are lubricated and sprightly,
And your blood is rich and active,
And your soul-
No one will give you
"How I brightened my soul in 4 weeks" tutorials,
But you ought to set your happy soul-goals,
A tummy rub in a sunny lawn on a lazy winter afternoon/
A drenching bath in heavy July rains/
A spontaneous poem effortlessly jotted down on a napkin
Level-happy!
And when you're that happy you will know
That you aren't a cut-out on public display,
Not a fruit,
not a diet,
not a fad that peaks and wanes,
You are an everlasting uniqueness,
You are an undefined shape,
You are that collection of rare energies
That only comes custom-made.

Distracted from everything,
Floating away from all things
Worldly and untrue
I drift fixated,
Towards you, you, you...

When your conscience's clear like crystal
You set them off-balance,
For when they see you, and try
ever so hard to find faults in you,
All they see is themselves.
Because you are clean fresh dew!
Pure like sunlight; you act as a mirror
for the soul of the onlooker,
And so, as they peer into you looking
for deceit and dirt,
their own face stares right back at them,
ugly truth gloriously unfurled.
Your open goodness
irks them, agitates them, provokes them
to claw at you, use their might, to
destroy you and all that's right,
but little do they know that you-
are Invincible. Beautiful. Resilient.
Birthed from struggle.
Tempered by truth.
Chiseled by principles.
Challenged by adversities galore,
haven't you always conquered them all?
So shine! Shine with all your brilliance,
and no one can break you,
for your conscience is your greatest wealth,
for your conscience is your Kohinoor.

How
many
people
Am I?!

My blood is gurgling lava swishing
Along the walls of my veins,
Turning 'red' every cell in its way,
Devouring my insides in raging flames,

As my skin simmers in silence,
But doesn't dare divulge,
The power of the quiet fire that
Seethes, raves, storms and engulfs!

He doesn't notice the goosebumps.
If he did, he could map out each inch
Of my body where my flesh lights up with
Desire at the mere sight of him.

He doesn't notice I'm beating about the bush
When I'm complimenting his eyes,
While my insides are squirming at the
Nervous thought of the ways infinite,

In which I'd overcome this ****** distance,
That is holding me back, keeping me away.
I know the Universe is buying time, fearing the
Electric aftermath our union would create.

I'll make sparks fly, we'll go see stars together,
Our skins'll birth fire, that'll satiate our hunger,
I'll let him touch raw love with his bare fingers,
Just a matter of time before we breach this barrier.

You probably saw her sometime, but
Didn't spare her more than a second look,
Demure girl, purple kurta-white salwar,
Quite routine, nothing out of the books.

Oh but I saw her, the true her,
Slender hands controlling a sturdy Enfield,
Salwar flapping wildly, freely against the wind.
Must admit, I couldn't stop looking!

You were a little too loud
A little too dismissive
A little too upfront
Forever eager to point out-
Especially among onlookers-
The million ways I was wrong.
I admit your harsh noise
Almost intimidated me enough to
Cave and give in,
Until I craned my ears a bit more
And heard the hollow bellows
Of the clanging insecurities
You'd hidden within.

I wonder how much sugar it'll take
To drown your bitter aftertaste

Hey! Did I just put on my best makeup
And my prettiest dress
Only to have you stare endlessly at
That one loose tress
Of mine and describe it as
"Exquisitely enchanting"?

*The blessed misfortunes of having
A True Blue Romantic darling

Incipient Love*                  
Putting forth your best face, yet
Searching for what their eyes say

Seasoned Love
Going through your worst day, yet
Knowing you take their breath away

Too much a part of my system,
My being, my thoughts-
Deepest of thoughts,
The shape of all my desires,
Precious, precious love,
When did I imbibe so much of you
When did I weave you so intricately
Into all my innocent and all my complex
Dreams,
Your face beams
At me, through your absence,
Stays with me,
Plays with me,
Leaving me to wonder in amazement,
When did I make you so much a part of me, that
I became you | You became *me

Gasp!
I stutter!
Chest rising, air-hungry...
Again, I sputter!

Efforts to resuscitate
My grappling form
Are all falling in vain
What is this storm?

Hands reaching out
With a desperate yearn for something
I lost, while I was busy
Extracting, gaining, bargaining.

Parched throat
Unmoistened by water
Tremulous heart
Beating feebler, faster.

No antidote works,
No therapies suffice,
Oxygen flows through,
Still I'm devoid of life.

The world dejectedly shakes its head
Everything known to man
Has been done. But
twists of fate, who can understand?

'Cause in a magical instant,
The Hand divine
Rests on my ebbing existence
One more time.

Once again dysrhythmic heart beats
Start dancing in orderly unison.
Breaths start entering-exiting
In perfect, beautiful, natural fashion.

In goes life,
The reason for my being,
In goes truth,
All knowledge, all meaning.

And finally, after the
Evil, cidal, unending eternity,
Out comes a deep, long, fulfilling
Exhalation of Poetry.

Now, alive, I truly am.

When you're born out of a broken marriage,
You unwittingly become part of it,
No one asked you if you wanted to,
Yet you mediate,
As you grow, you participate,
You cease to be a child very soon,
You are the third spouse who entered
Way after the honeymoon,
You live with the everyday-fear of this
Arrangement falling apart,
You don't know why you're saving it,
Despite it being so toxic to all three minds and hearts,
But, as if you were born for just that purpose,
You strive for it everyday,
You take sides everyday,
Being a successful last straw
Is your daily pretend-play,
And suppressed resentment, your best friend,
Those born out of a broken marriage will know,
Having a loving father and a loving mother
Is not the same as having a family where
Everyone loves each other.

Reluctant subject,
I nervously peered at
your kind lens as you clicked
I must have shut my eyes
The sun is so harsh anyway, I thought,
or given that crooked, half-hearted smile
that I usually end up with

Helpless photo-ruiner,
I gazed in surprise at the beauty
staring back at me,
And saw what you see in me
and fall in love with, everyday,
Looking at myself through your eyes,
I quietly realised,
It was your photograph's grace

Hearts bound by Destiny don't obey
the rules of distance, time, realities;
they cannot be chained by worldly restraints

For their bond had been carefully crafted
that day the universe had taken upon itself
to bring their love story to completion

And who can defeat the universe?
Constraints, tangible and intangible,
try but miserably fail,

As the two hearts, sometimes flutter,
Falter, fly hither-thither,
But never go away much further

And are pulled back together,
again and again - again and again!,
With the strings of their celestial love, unbreakable

Sparks fly when the hearts conjoin,
Reeling from separation, their love now intensified;
The beatific universe watches over them

*And blissfully smiles

The skin whispers and summons her hither,
To where secret stories lie hidden in depths
That she had not yet discovered,
The sigh of the flesh, the magnetism
Of touch, the electricity of lust beckon,
Her steps momentarily waver,
Yet she retraces them just in time,
Managing to overhear the conversation
Her heart was having with his,
There were sounds of throaty laughter,
Friendly nudges and incessant debates,
There was a fragrance of coffee in the air,
A nip of flirtation had begun to dance with care,
And there were cushions scattered on the floor.
She sat on the pink one,
And he sat at the other side,
Both immersed in that conference,
Knowing they would let their hearts
Talk each other out,
Before the skins began to talk out loud.

How empowering it is to be able to sprinkle
Just the amount of turmeric powder,
And to know just how much of a pinch,
Is that pinch of salt and coriander,
Which'll swirl around together in sputtering oil,
Dancing with crisp bay leaves and cloves,
Bathing in the crimson of finely ground chilli,
Forming a fragrance engulfing the sacred stove,
The fragrance that defines every hand that cooks,
Each concoction of spices distinctly set apart
By infinite proportions of masalas and herbs,
Carving infinite routes of satisfying the heart,
The kitchen is the powerhouse of a home,
And the ones who man it are technologists
Who day after day, create curry that reaches
Not just the gut but the self of who consumes it,
It is only when you stand, teaspoon in hand,
While lightly brown onions look up to you in anticipation
Do you realise that forming food is no simple, menial task
It is a scientific, artistic and spritual exploration.

So what could be worse than
Lying on a hard, rickety bed
Squashed between wall and mother
With sweat travelling down your forehead?

And counting the blades of the fan
At its maximum speed, lazily tumbling,
Planning your mighty escape, because
Surely the termites were going to bring down that ceiling?

Spotting a lizard - expertly camouflaged - staring down at you from its abode - right at you - probably thinking to itself - "Oh cool, she'll catch me if I fall"

Yes, that's what's worse.

I've always wondered
What it'd be like
To make love in a tent,
Fragrance of soil and sweat
And urgent desire in the air,
With the dark sky lit up with
galaxies and galaxies
of stars and the letters of my name,
Punctuated by your breaths as you'd
Chant it like a prayer,
Risqué and **** and earthy,
Rawer than the last time,
Rawer than that time,
Whispers so titillating they'd
Make the silent night blush,
Make the dewy, green, lush
Grass curl its leaves in shame,
And send the river stream flowing
A little too hurriedly,  
And the clouds a-tizzy,
And the Earth a-dizzy
When I'd open my eyes, exuding
Fire through and through,
I know the sky would mirror me,
And undress into its brightest crimson hue.
I know if we'd make love that way,
The sun would rise earlier that day.

When you uproot a poet, you ****** away her 'self'
Because her self is enjoined to the soil beneath her feet,
With tendrils she seeks sustenance from her land
And blooms into songs of love and promises to keep
When you rob a painter of her colour palette
That shone messily but beautifully of the hues,
Of saffrons and greens merging together and seeping
Into the brown of her skin- the only colour she knew,
You turn her hands into barely-there phantoms,
Unable to create a canvas of her heart's song,
Jarred by chants of 'who are you?' 'where are you from?'
'do you belong?' 'prove you belong!'
How does she prove her belonging to the cradle
That birthed her, that housed her,
Whose elements are admixed with all her blood inside
How does she profess her allegiance to that earth?
It is as if being exhorted to prove she is alive,
inhale, see!, exhale, see!, I breathe, see!
It is as if being wrenched by her limbs to gauge their depth
the pulse in my arteries, see!, these crimson rhythmic spurts, see
O my land, I bleed with abandon;
O my land, I bleed in poetry for thee.

Screeching screaming
Flat tire
Halts journey!
Menacing night-
Fangs bared,
Nastily stares
~Crouching~
Stares nastily,
Bared fangs,
Night, menacing!
Journey halts,
Tire flat,
Screaming, screeching.

Together, they were like that wiry hair with
A split end she would obsessively try
To peel apart,
Not sure if more harm would be done,
With or without it in her heart.
She knew she could cut it off
and be done with it in a go,
Yet she picked at it,
Deriving strange painful pleasures in tearing
Each other away,
Till he would fall into the abyss of oblivion,
And her, weakened, distorted,
A lone strand would remain,
Never would she be the same again.

The age of letting time take its
own, slow course is gone, perhaps
For every hour is rush hour,
Every meal is a quick-bite,
That cup of coffee always instant,
Honking even before the signal goes
from yellow to green, the rule

The age of savouring the moment
to its delicious limit is gone, perhaps
For every flaw is now a breaking point,
Every argument cause for a split-up
Every mismatch provocateur of second thoughts

In the age of waiting being obsolete,
Patience becoming a virtue redundant,
The plain, small joys of life becoming insignificant,
The material replacing the abstract,
The direction of the swipe on a touchscreen
Becoming the decider of the fate of love stories,
I'll never find you, perhaps,
If this world continues to function
Like a real-life dating app

Numbness I await
While your words reverberate
Through and through my soul.