you're my paperback in a world full of PDFs

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new cover
new beginning
same old obsession

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its skin tore softly, like the silence between us.
Each slice, a secret I’d kept hidden.
The first crush, the missed calls,
the dreams I packed like lunch in steel tiffin boxes, only to return untouched.

The pulp, tender and bursting,
reminded me of the joy I saved for you,
Sweet, sharp, never shared.
Juice dripped down my fingers,
like the words I never spoke
but carried in my throat like prayer.

You never asked for it.
But I peeled anyway.

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He sketches a
portrait, not hers.
She's left out.

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Waves come crashing.
Touch the shore.
Hands stay empty.

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It ripened slowly,
bathed in borrowed warmth,
clinging to the branch
like trust to a trembling promise.
The wind flirted,
the sun coaxed,
and the tree-
it stood still,
offering no reassurance,
no shelter from the storm brewing.
No one heard the cries
of a fruit that ached to hold on,
no hand reached out in time, and
a mango fell while no one watched.

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If words are a writer's voice,
can we call someone facing writer's block

DUMB!

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To be a flower pressed between the pages
a token of love or
a reminder of love drifted away

a frantic search for fragrance or
a realization that what has vanished doesn't reappear

a symbol of what might have been or
a thankfulness that what happened
happened for the best

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Wish I were your saree.

Draping your flaws.

Pleating your happiness.

Revealing the best within you.

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I wished for a day rich with gentle adjectives,
but it passed with quietly placed adverbs.
Now, I end it with a quiet exclamation.

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