Modern Love Poems: I Will Wear Your Jacket by Shrutee Choudhary

[Note from Frolic: We’re so excited to welcome poet Shrutee Choudhary back to the site. She’s sharing more of her breathtaking poetry with us!]

1. I keep the curtains drawn so that way, I could be anywhere in the world. my imagination holds my reality’s hand in this bedroom, and I teleport. 

I sip on macchiato after devouring the best pizza in a roadside café in Italy. 

I watch Before Sunrise and walk the cobbled alleyways of Vienna. 

every now and then, I slip away to the west village in New York, my emotions as diverse as the crowd there. 

so far I’ve watched the northern lights, jumped off cliffs, hiked at countrysides. I’ve been everywhere in my mind, a variety of vibrant finds 

but each night, after a great new adventure, I clench my fists, I close my eyes shut 

and try really, really hard to end up next to you

and every time I end up right where I began, alone 

lovelorn, as vacant as the other side 

of my bed. my eyes puffed up just like your pillows, trying as hard as I can to remember you

but my mattress doesn’t dent from your weight anymore, only my heart seems to grow heavier. 

the more you fade, the more I persuade 

myself to hold onto 

what is so clearly not mine anymore. 

so I keep my curtains drawn, to try and forget that we belong to the same city but not to each other 

I let my mind take me away to someplace new, as long as it’s a place that I haven’t been with you.

2. I want you to know that I will wear your jacket, even if it reeks 

of seven yesterdays

to make something of you be something of mine

for days that you’re not around 

and I’m lost in time

and I will ask the moon a favour, to lookout for you when I can’t do so myself

she owes me, you know, for hundreds 

of nights I’ve spent facing up, having our balcony camaraderie, through all of her phases

so she will help

and if at all you decide to take 

your favourite jacket away

if your hand decides to 

leave mine

if our love doesn’t live 

to see another day

I will borrow 

the darkest fold of the sky

drape myself 

in its midnight blue 

land a seat right next to the moon

in the hopes to catch a glimpse of you.