my life is paved with your name
like you had been watching out for me
from your parallel life
and when you fetched me from
a dark front yard
we were not strangers
for even a single moment

there is nothing strange
about you being the only one
fluent in my tongue
about you finding ways to teach me
my own vocabulary

now I know
I did have a word for love,

you.

You are nothing, my dear.

The “nothing” I refer to
when someone asks:
“whatcha thinking about?”

You’re the empty side of the bed—
The cooler half I always chase,
where the thought of you
still sleeps in place.

You are the goosebumps
I may never feel
but wake for everyday.
You are the intangible wrinkle,
the tiny little seam I slip into
when my thoughts begin to fold.
You’re the nowhere I run to
when this house
no longer feels like home.

Because the incessantness
of the voices in my head
often leave me speechless —
Tongue tied and tense,
Social anxiety neutralizing
my offense.

My fight or flight
can only float for so long
before it hears the void humming low
like an old song I know.
I drift to it,
even when I try not to go.

You are the silence that arrives
to euthanize my wandering mind

when I’m much too weak
and have nothing to keep—

when it’s time to casket

my thoughts to sleep.

And maybe then,

when my breath starts to cease,

I'll fall into you—

and finally know peace.

So when I say you are nothing,
and I say I am too,

the words may match,
But they don’t both mean you.

I call myself nothing

with venom,
with shame—

like I’m empty of worth,

just a ghost with no name.

But you—

You’re the kind of nothing
that pulls galaxies into shape.
You’re the fold in my brain
where a thought should be,
The crevice in my soul
Where loneliness should feast
but instead
it’s coconut lullabies,
Sipping on mai-tais,
with a you-shaped breeze.

You are greed
when it comes to my ability to breathe
because all you do is take.
You are nothing
because no thing compares itself
to the multitudes you contain.
Dares to give name to
that weightless ache
that makes fools of us all.

So I say you are nothing,
my dear.
in the way that love is nothing
Until it ruins you completely—
and somehow still makes you whole.

You are nothing,
but only in the way
stars are nothing
until they’re given a name.

But until then,
You are simply something
I can’t explain.

ओ मेरे मितवा,
मुझसे रूठो ना रे तुम।
मुझे प्यार हुआ है तुमसे,
तुझमें हो गए हैं गुम।

ख़ुदा से माँगी है एक दुआ –
मेरा प्यार तुम तक पहुँचा देना।
मिल गए तुम इस ज़िंदगी में,
तो फिर और क्या है पाना?

फ़ासले हमारे बीच के
चुभ रहे हैं अब मुझे,
बेसब्र हो गई हूँ अब
मिलने के लिए मैं तुझे।

इज़हार न कर पाई मैं
तुमसे अपने प्यार का,
बयान न कर सकी मैं
दिल से की मोहब्बत का।

इस प्यार की चुनौती में,
ऐ ख़ुदा, तुम मेरा साथ देना।
रूठा है वो मुझसे –
उसे कैसे भी है मनाना।