[Note from Frolic: We are so excited to announce our new series of modern love poetry from the top poets on Instagram. Next up is part 5 of a collection from @shruteechoudhary. Read part one here.]
1. I want to
rewrite all my poems
they are imbeciles, ignorant
fluff pieces, hollow
rats make home in the pipelines
of the words I’ve used to describe
love and all feelings akin
actually, nothing feels like love.
to draw comparison is to sin
everything I ever thought I’d known
feels like a lie
it’s like watching a showreel pass me by
I was a fool for settling, projecting
romanticising mediocre things
but I couldn’t have known then
that car lights through rain-tinted windows
could ever look so good
and silly love songs could all be possessed by a person
what new words could I possibly
arrange and in which order to
describe
the way you make me feel
It’s all been written and sung and told
but not one of them could hold
enough meaning
to narrate the way I’m feeling
tonight
I’m jet lagged
we were fourteen
timezones away
in your bedroom
and I was feverish in your arms
last night
was twenty years ago
I’ve known you for a million days
I get tipsy drunk on your voice, your face
is the ocean
I’m the moon
together to riptides we swoon.
/this poem doesn’t end
2. I must have fallen asleep reading
and between chapters, I must have woken up. only the moon
seemed fuller. the last spell of rain made it all a little blurry. music blared through the breeze. my vision was in dreamscape and the tales
about love were being told at the gazebo around the corner. only the tales
were true stories. stories about people like us.
I met you in a state of utopia, and all this time
I never deemed it possible, to feel happiness
to an extent of rousing suspicion, to not being able to spot one difference between life
and surreality; all this in the midst of harrowing darkness and endless nights.
3. I don’t know how
to take it slow
We met two
full moons ago
I have missed you since
it’s difficult to count down
the time in hours
so it’s music
that we devour
you say you won’t be
too long
that you will see me again
in nineteen songs
I’ve known forever
to be too vague
you and I
we’ll grow old together
in mixtapes.
When I’m not busy being a goofball, I like to complicate my life for a living, so I can try and uncomplicate it with words.
I like to travel and make pictures. I’m also an actor, so I’m really all about the stories.
In poetic terms,
I’m the wormhole between reality and fiction
I’m the rhyme and the contradiction.
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