I have loved,
but the kind of love that fades like handwriting
on rain-soaked paper;
not with betrayal,
but with the quiet indifference of days
that don’t answer back.
Kafka whispered to me once
not in words,
but in the way doorways narrow
just when you think you’ve made it through.
Every connection
was a trial without verdict,
a journey without destination.
Camus sat beside me in the nights,
cigarette in hand,
Moonlight on a meaningless world.
He taught me how to breathe in futility
without asking for more than breath.
He said: you must imagine Sisyphus happy,
but I still don’t know if I can.
Love, in my life,
has been a stranger who knew my name
but not my language.
People come..
They meet the surface,
Share a laugh, a habit, a warmth
and miss the abyss beneath.
There is a frequency I emit,
low, steady, almost imperceptible.
Most call it vibe.
But it is a beacon.
A signal
for one who has read Kafka at 2 a.m.
and did not flinch,
who has opened a window before dawn
Jumped out and hugged a tree..
She will not complete me.
Completion is a myth
sold by those who fear solitude.
But she will understand
that despair is not weakness,
and silence is not absence.
I do not wait with hope.
I wait with clarity
knowing I may never be heard,
and choosing to speak anyway.
This, too, is love.
To remain open
in a world that misunderstands
your every honest word.
I still keep sending the signal.
Because…
in this godless static of the cosmos,
the real rebellion
is to be understood
exactly as you are..
and still be loved for it.
-Himanshu Kumar