How does a poet become… a poet?

And what makes a poem… a poem?

- nongiftedpoet

I hope that someday someone looks into my eyes, and finally sees the universe inside...

"He told me about himself somehow, his failures and his hopes, the people he swore to protect but ultimately left behind. Five years went by, and I learned his pain. He waited for the hero who would save the day, not knowing he was somehow mine. There was someone he often speak of, a hero who saved his life, but who he hurted. I remember how he said he never had any regrets, but I knew he lied, because that day he became very silent. If he could be given this chance, one day, I hope he could mend things with this person, and tell them how he feels..."

when too much time passes by bryce eldridge

“Tell me something about yourself.”

i) i couldn't pick up a phone call without trembling for two years. seeing my loved ones take a call felt like someone was squeezing my heart in their fist. dread tastes like bile and something terribly bitter. it steals your breath and weaves with it a tapestry of your darkest fears.

i used to pick up a call and all i could think was,

“who died this time?”

ii) i have a pseudo-degree in hindi but still can't speak the language. it should fill me with shame, maybe. i don't particularly care; i’ve never liked it much. my teacher would be disappointed. but not upset. never upset when it came to me. she used to say i was her smartest student. i will deny the statement till i die. i used to laugh when she sang along to old movie songs and drank coffee from her bafflingly huge cup. i look at her handwriting on my notebook now, the flowy, graceful scrawl of her letters and talk to the sky,

“i'm sorry i didn't come to your funeral.”

i like to think she isn't upset.

iii) i've only liked someone once. maybe that isn't the right word for it. i’ve only loved someone once.

no, that isn't right, either. i've loved all my lives and held on to every stranger that crosses me with the awed reverence of a devotee. i’ve loved people that i'll never see again and ones that i hope to see every day of my miserable, beautiful life. i love so easily. i love so terribly.

what i mean to say is: i've only once ripped my heart out of my chest and set it on fire just because my beloved asked. maybe love isn't supposed to hurt so much. maybe i'm doing it all wrong. but i loved him. i don't know what else to call it.

iv) i keep chasing ghosts. it's all i do. sometimes, it makes me think that maybe, i'm the one haunting them.

i still check if my pencil is sharp enough by poking it on my cheek, just like my teacher used to (hindi, unwavering confidence, adoration, a mug of coffee. i’ve never seen bravery look so beautiful). the songs that kept me alive were the ones recommended to me by the boy who broke my heart (crooked smiles, green sandals, valorant, the word no. he knew my number like the back of his hand, the way i thought i knew him). i still have a letter i wrote to the girl whose love i threw away without a second glance. (books, glasses and whispered secrets. the apology rots under my desk drawer and smells like shame). i have the flowers that grew in my late grandpa’s house (pink, white, laughter, death) and a page from my uncle’s messy notes (can you hear it? can you hear my scream, my pride, my misery whenever i say ‘i’m going to be a doctor’? can you hear the name of a dead man sitting on my tongue, bleeding, bleeding, always bleeding? can you?) and a stolen polaroid (frozen happiness. sterile and pretty and traceable. it makes me want to rip out my throat) pressed between the pages of my notebook. i look in the mirror and watch them all be helplessly chained down to me. i tell them,

“i can never let you go. i’m sorry that i'm not sorry.”

v) all my life, i’ve run away from my problems. i’m so, so afraid. it scares me, the possibility that this is who i always will be. i run and i sit still, frozen in fear. i don't know what to do. i’m a coward; that's all i've always been.

“I hate cucumbers.”

I was six when you left

And I have been six ever since ..

i want us to dance on rock with you by Michael Jackson all night

⭐ SEQUEL ANNOUNCEMENT!!! ⭐

There's a saying, "if only we had more time, if I had said what I felt..." to the ones that we love... but what if one didn't or couldn't? The second and final installment of the Heartlines duology, "Things Left Unsaid" is vol. 2 - a collection of poems that are about incomplete love stories, star-crossed lovers, tragic tales, regrets, unspoken confessions, the "what if's?" and so much more!

Where "A Glimpse of Love" was a peek into the various aspects of love in all its forms, this one tells a different story, a little bit more... emotional... this time around, but still just as important to tell; to remind us that when we have the chance, we should take the opportunity to say what's in our hearts 💙

"Things Left Unsaid" is out on Dec 17th, 2024!!!

You want “closure” so bad? Here it is. You’re a bad person. I really wish I had seen it sooner, but better late than never, right? I’m not letting you suck me dry anymore. I don’t give a fuck if you’ve made me out to be the bad guy, if you’ve got them convinced that I am, that you’re so “poor innocent little thing who’s never done wrong,” when you know you’re a bad person, you have said it before, but you’re never going to change, and you know that, don’t you? Because all you give a shit about is attention, and admitting your shitty behaviours gets you more of it, gets people to forgive you, but the second they disagree with you and try and really help you you throw them aside and act like they’re the villain. And I know you’re going to run to your new toy and pout at him, trick him like you’ve tricked everyone else in your life, tricked him into seeing past the abusive and narcissistic behaviours because you’re just so pitiful how could you ever be bad, right? That’s what you made me believe. You made yourself look so sad and small I thought you weren’t capable of malice, but after everything you’ve done just because I set one boundary made me realise you’re an asshole, and I am never giving you the time of day again. I’m done making excuses for you. I’m done waiting after you. Go fuck yourself, genuinely. I know I’m not your first victim, and I know I won’t be your last, so I hope you and him are happy, and I hope in a year or two when you’ve bled him dry and the poison starts to seep into his skull, and he finally sees the truth about you just like I did, I hope you get thrown away like the garbage you are.

You are never going to manipulate me into thinking I’m not enough again. Into thinking I can’t give enough to you. I’m not scared of you anymore. Not like I was. You aren’t as scary as I had feared, you were just disappointing. I really thought you could’ve been something.

Just this once, I’m glad I was wrong.

i didn’t regret choosing myself the moment i knew i had to decide between continue loving you or completely losing it, but choosing myself had never felt this selfish i ought to lose different versions of you all at once. i’ve been convincing myself that the way i ended things could’ve been gentler, yet since when is a breakup i dreaded the most gentle? i loved you in ways i’d never do again, ways that made me involuntarily grieve and mourn for remembering you.

they said that love is a choice and is always about choosing the person every day. but by choosing him every day, a piece of me loses until i'm nothing but an anguished, bitter little girl asking why life is nothing but unfair when things don't go her way no matter what good she does.

“What is home?”

It’s a place surrounded with books annotated with emotions, aged papers with messy handwritings, piano hugged by vines, sounds of ticking old clock filling the air, soothing smell of scented candles, magical library with books roaming around, a lake in front of the house accompanied by a kitten, near a garden filled with white flowers on the hillside, and with you by my side.

- nongiftedpoet

"You will always hold a special part of me. You will always be that special person i think about when someone asks me about the best thing that ever happened to me. I will always imagined you as someone i deeply cared about. I know we both tried to be better for each other but we were just simply too different. I couldn't handle the arguments anymore, maybe because i am weak. I'm sorry things turned out this way but i still hope that i will see you again someday. Iam confident that your future will be the brightest and rewarding. Iam already so proud of you."

zero does not exist—yet she yearns

You came and you left

In between coming and leaving there was something quite magical about us, wasn’t there?

Or am I absurd for thinking such nonsense? I will always wonder

At least for me, we were something great. Kind of like a breath of fresh air. Or the warmth of an open fire on a winters night.

The feeling of utter wholeness, nothing less.

The ‘ so this is what I’ve been waiting for all my life’ feeling.

Our love was like a puzzle, two pieces that fit just perfectly.

But once broken can’t be fixed, things never quite fit as beautifully as the first time.

We tried though,

Didn’t we.

So as I say; our love was like a puzzle once completed but then broken.

You came. You left.

P.s, I wish you would’ve stayed a little while longer.

E.M