She gave me so much space
I didn’t know how to breathe in it—
the room a cathedral of quiet.
“Figure it out yourself,” she said.
My heart winced again and again,
like a violin string pulled too tight.
“It hurts,” I whispered.
“Nothing stays,” she replied.
Days with books in that hotel-like flat,
ink-scented afternoons,
aimless rides on the metro—
new and old… her.
Delhi smells of lemon and tandoor,
of rotis and niharis,
of sweat in a crowd,
of the cold evening breeze
—like memory brushing the nape of the neck—
of the thrill before a lover’s footsteps.
Smiles, then love, then tears—
frames wrapped in silk and stored away
like heirlooms no one speaks of.
A hell of uncertainty.
“Heaven it is,” said she.
Kaleidoscopically, she kept reshaping
the patterns of my broken hopes—
shards turning to constellations.
Beautiful. Always beautifully.
And I kept returning to her.
Until it all busted—
blasted—broken glass skittering apart,
merciless and honest.
At last, sweetheart, I understood:
you’re a riddle solved—
no longer a mystery,
yet still, endlessly magnetic.
I don’t crave you anymore,
but sometimes I miss you—
your exaggerations, your masks,
your gorgeousness, every command
I once memorized.
Yes, dear, some things do stay forever—
every shifting pattern of the kaleidoscope.
So I return once more,
They say it’s spring there,
but only for a while—
a brief thaw of the heart.
Hoping to play hide and seek again,
to whisper a few yeses and nos,
to slip back into our old games—
now that I’ve learned
their secret architecture.
Meeting an old, old lover
with a new smile.
DoubleSpeak 