Love Poems: Ironically, the open sky is a ravel of mysteries by Shrutee Choudhary

[Note from Frolic: We are so excited to announce our new series of modern love poetry from the top poets on Instagram. First up is a collection from @shruteechoudhary]

One

Ironically, the open sky is a ravel of mysteries. Yet all we see when we look above is uninhibited vastness, which seems to us like freedom from where we stand.

And in that open space, there are a billion things unknown to us, and so unknown to themselves. Because so far, only humans have been able to decipher any meaning from the Universe and beyond. At least that’s what we like to think. But have we deciphered anything at all?

Sometimes I think, the only things that are genuine are ones that still remain inexplicable to us. Things that even our brilliant minds can not articulate with their sound logic and reasoning. Things that often leave us feeling helpless because we cannot control or define them.

I’m far from knowledgeable when it comes to physics and the comprehension of the cosmos but I am a poet, who finds inspiration in the stars. And I see there is a pattern that surrounds us, if you really look. Scientists will give it a name, mathematicians will have something else to add but to me, it’s a grand design, a piece of art and we are mere fragments of it.

Earlier today, I read about binary stars. They are two stars that are gravitationally bound together, orbiting their common center of mass; and I immediately ran out to spot them. It’s the rarest sight, impossible to see even through the most powerful telescope because from this great, great distance, they appear as one.

And suddenly to me, that phenomenon became the very definition of love.

I’m going to bed thinking that maybe, from a great, great distance, you and I look like binary stars.

Two

my first warning sign

should’ve been that you

loathed Bukowski’s edge

and rawness

I read you one of his poems

one of my favourites, a few lines

you spurned it

and just how long did it take you

to realise that the tongue I kissed with

could also slit throats

with equally remarkable passion?

I think my choices scared you

gave you a glimpse

of doomsday rubbing

its palms together

plotting the end for some

the beginning to others

if only you’d decided to stay

instead of chasing more

saturated gardens

if only you’d watered our

own backyard together

bringing it to life

instead of running away

like a bee caught drinking

nectar, you could’ve tasted mine.

I had always been love

roughed around the edges

from the rust that came with

too many abandoning

and not enough staying.

but you couldn’t be around me

long enough

to figure it out.

Three

It was a pull I had no control over

into someplace I was yet to discover

you were the wormhole

my wrinkle in time

one that would let me travel through universes

simply by existing

I knew this the moment

your lips marked my forehead

like the first drop from a drizzle

that I had to run

into your arms to take shelter

from the downpour that was about to hit us

I looked up to you like a flower

facing the Sun

finally blooming with warmth

swaying unknowingly

and it was instant

like being struck by lightning —

the realisation that drenched me

from head to toe

one that would only grow;

that something had shifted

in my heart, to make room for you

like after rain, leaves hold dew

that the opening of your eyes would be all of my mornings

that the stupid shade of brown would have me falling.

it was a relief that washed over me

like I was finally where I was supposed to be —

home.

Four

/and while on my way back home

I thought about you, what a waste of a beautiful mind

a heart set on rewind

refusing to beat in the moment. what a waste of a conversation

of a rare connection

of endless laughter and smiles.

and what’s closeness if you were on the other side of a wall

was it really intimacy at all?

those goosebumps felt like barbed wires

a story lived by two liars

did it even happen?

and if it was loneliness that had led me into your arms

despite those blaring alarms

I feel even lonelier now.

Five

but nights don’t get to sleep at night at all

my mind amuses you. the way I think, the way words tumble, fumble out of my mouth, like freshly squeezed orange juice.

my thirst for your body to be wrapped around me like that first morning after sex, in a Hollywood cliché — you are miles of plain white sheet I wear to breakfast, with messy hair and all my guards down.

then the need for me to ebb from you, because my hindsight is a cataract no ophthalmologist can cure

and the mahogany in tree branches seep through my veins, and it keeps growing darker and darker.

I’m a carmine cadaver seeking pain because there are moments

when I feel nothing, and you can sense it, can’t you?

when you touch my skin, your fingers get frostbites.

you stay wide awake with the night, watching me sleep

the hollow in my eyes neatly tucked under my eyelashes. I almost look like the crack of morning again

and you hope that I wake up warm.