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First Published by Notion Press 2021
Copyright © Rithvik Singh 2021
All Rights Reserved.
eISBN 978-1-68523-425-6
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For my mother,
who carries skies
in her eyes,
and wears grace
like flowers
in her hair.
POETRY AND PROSE ABOUT

loving
learning
leaving
hoping
hurting
healing
believing
building
blooming

in no specific order
My words will feel like home to you.
It’s been raining
ever since you left,
and here I am,
making paper boats
of your memories,
slowly trying to
let go of you.
A lover found their moon today
and a dreamer kissed the sky.
A flower blossomed today
and a caterpillar finally
became a butterfly.
A heart was touched
by the sun today after years
and the wind danced in joy.

But it’s okay if nothing great

happened with you today.
It’s okay if you’re yet to find
what your heart deserves.
It’s okay, for I know,
and you must know it too,
that one day, you’ll bloom,
and it’s totally okay
if today wasn’t that day.
– hold onto hope
Sunflowers cannot stay alive
in the absence of the sun,
but you’re not a flower,
and you can always
choose to bloom,
with or without someone.
Hopeful hearts are full of life, but sometimes they feel lifeless, too. People who
shine brightly on most days sometimes get lost in the darkness, and birds who
love the sky sometimes fall to the ground. But you must know that hopeful
hearts keep holding onto hope, people discover the sun within themselves, and
brave birds dare to fly again.
– don’t give up
Even rain can’t fall
as gracefully as humans
do when in love.
Flowers are waiting
for spring to arrive
and just like them,
I’m waiting for autumn
to leave my heart.
It’s the things that are
left unsaid that take-up
the most space
in our hearts.
But why do you love them with your whole heart,
the people who leave you feeling empty?
Honeybees give nothing
to flowers but drain them;
sunflowers give nothing
to the sun but feed on its light.
Sometimes people do the same to you.
Bury your fears
before they reduce you
to a bird with broken wings.

Allow your heart

to fall over and over again
until it’s finally ready to fly.

And you’ll soon find yourself

far away from all apprehensions
and closer to your dreams.
Flowers will grow
where you had
buried your fears
and the sun will smile back.
– bury fears, not dreams.
Perhaps when you spend all your time loving someone’s dark,
you slowly start forgetting about the light that lives in your heart.
And maybe, all we want is to be loved on days when there’s a wildfire inside us,
and no flowers are blooming. When there are no stars in the night sky and the
moon refuses to shine. When life isn’t kind to us and nothing seems fine. Maybe
all we want is someone who stays with us even on our darkest days, and maybe
that person is the only one who truly deserves our light.
Some people feel like
sunsets and rainbows,
and with a handful of light
in their arms,
they plant hope in
every heart they touch.
It’s almost magical, you see,
when you fill someone’s heart with love,
your own heart feels full.
Tell me it isn’t magic,
how you’re blooming even in the fall.
You’re so much more than
what people around you
see in you –
you’re a home to hope
strong enough to work on
your weaknesses;
you fall like rain
and rise like a storm.

And it’s okay

if people fail to see the
strength with which
you hold yourself together
even on days when you’re vulnerable.
It’s okay if people cannot
understand your heart,
for not everyone can fathom
the depths of an ocean;
for a thousand people
can know someone
but only a handful
can understand them.

But may you never forget

you’re much more
than someone’s opinion of you,
you’re much more
than what people around you
are capable of seeing in you.
Stay.
Let’s grow flowers where only fire has lived until now.
If looking into their eyes
makes you smile like never before,
accept that your heart has finally
found itself a home.
And then, one day, you just find someone who fills the fragrance of a thousand
flowers in your heart. Someone who ends the wars you’ve been fighting against
yourself. Someone who makes you realize why poets write about love and why
people still believe in the magic of letting someone enter their souls.
Time doesn’t stop, only people do.
Love doesn’t leave, only lovers do.
Some sunsets bring
back old memories,
others help us make new ones.
I hope you find someone
who fills your heart
with so much love
that it doesn’t
feel heavy anymore.
Sunsets and self-love will save your soul.
You look at me in a way that makes my heart melt the way snow does when the
sun kisses it, and the way lovers do when they watch the sunset together. Your
words are a reflection of the warmth you carry inside you. This heart was a
graveyard, and you, you with your love, made every ounce of it smile for the first
time after decades of pain. It’s strange how someone can make you feel a zillion
emotions all at once. It’s strange how someone’s mere presence can make you
feel so safe, vulnerable, and strong, all at once. You are the breath to the feelings
I thought I wasn’t capable of handling anymore. Your eyes constantly tell me
you’re in love with me, and my heart never gets tired of saying it feels the same
way for you.
– you make me bloom
You’ll meet many people
who would promise
to gift you the stars,
but I hope you
wait for the person
who would make you
shine like one.
Listen to people
for they may be dying
to tell someone
how they’re feeling.
– and the same goes for your own heart.
I wonder as I look outside the window,
trapped in the love of morning rain
trees seem to be patiently waiting for sunshine
the same way I’ve been waiting for you.
Busy grieving the person
who left you in chaos,
you forget to appreciate
the one who saved you from it.
Hold a cold heart
with love and watch
how it transforms into a flower.
Love is an ocean
that reminds people
of the depths
of their own hearts.
Some people are feelings
that refuse to leave the heart.
You love flowers even when it isn’t spring.
May you learn to love yourself the same way.
Hope is a light that lightens your heart.
Share your spring with the person
who didn’t leave you alone in the fall.
Let your soul listen to the things
the universe is trying to say to you.
All those memories in your heart,
and you wonder why it feels so heavy.
So take a deep breath and let them go,
for they don’t deserve the right to stay in your life,
the ones who do not understand your soul.
Today, I forgive myself,
not for loving you too deeply
but for failing to love myself
the same way.
Love your growth
for there are people
who spend their entire lives
with their feet and eyes
on the ground.
Love is a bird that gifts wings to every heart it touches.
It’s okay to not
be enveloped by rainbows my friend,
until you can feel
the warmth of sunshine
around you.
Happiness isn’t about places,
it’s about people who feel like home.
I saw the moon,
gently looking towards
the earth –
smiling on seeing
lovers holding hands,
watching shooting stars,
falling in love with the
darkness of the night
while promising to be
each other’s light.

I believe in love,
but my heart doesn’t
believe in the people
who claim to understand it.

So every time someone

tried to get closer to me
I pushed them away.
I didn’t care to see
the love in their eyes,
but only impending heartache;
almost as if falling in love
would reduce my heart
to a barren autumn tree,
longing for a spring
that may never arrive.

I kept running away from love

trying to save my heart
from the eventual pain,
but then one day,
I ran into you,
and the warmth that I was
frightened would burn me
caressed my heart
and wrapped me in its embrace.

That’s when I realized

you cannot run away
from what awaits you
and love doesn’t always
lead to heartbreak-
sometimes, love stays
and it’s worth the risk.
I remember every little detail
that I so want to forget,
I wish to let go of your memories
but also hold onto them,
and that’s the ugliest state
one’s heart can be in.
There are times when I look at you and feel you’re no longer the person you
used to be. But then I look at myself, and I wonder if you think I’ve changed a
lot, too. I no longer send you pictures of flowers or ask if we can watch a sappy
movie together. You no longer tell me about your cooking nightmares, and I no
longer ask. These days, we smile a lot less when we’re next to each other, and
there is much more silence than there ever was. Perhaps that’s what time does –
it changes things. You think your love for someone will remain unchanged even
if everything else doesn’t stay the same, but unfortunately, it changes, too.
Sometimes in ways, you don’t like. Sometimes in ways, you had never imagined.
And only silence and memories are left where there was love once.
Solitude doesn’t scare me. Silence does.
Some people make a home
in your heart
and promise to stay with you
even if the world was ending,
and your innocent heart forgets
how so many people
make so many promises
to so many people
every single day,
but not everyone cares enough
to keep the promises they make.

It’s only a matter of time

before you realize it,
you’re going to lose them,
but you never accept that
you never really had them.
People don’t leave your life
all at once –
they leave your life
little by little,
moment by moment.
And it takes years before you
finally realize you were
just a part of their vacation-
a tiny part of their rainbow filled days,
and never really a part of their life.

Don’t let such temporary people

enter your heart,
for they would
ultimately leave you alone
with your only companion
being the painful memories
of the time you spent loving them
only to be left heartbroken in the end.
I’ve loved you in silence for so long,
my heart doesn’t know
how to express itself anymore.
What brings autumn to your heart cannot be love.
Leave them the moment love leaves your heart.
How I felt like when you left:
– A leafless tree in a spring-kissed forest
– A withered flower in a bouquet
– A playlist full of sad songs
– A letter too drenched in the rain to be read
– A prayer made with an empty heart
– An empty house
– A poem without a rhyme
– A loud war
– Silence
Silence carries the weight
of everything the heart
wants to say but cannot.
There can be light
all around you,
and inside you,
and you can still feel
lost in darkness.
People are like stories,
some are forgotten with time
and some live inside us forever.
But people aren’t flowers
and you shouldn’t break them
just because you find them beautiful.
Jealousy consumes your heart
says, my mother
and gives birth to a version of you
that leads you to self-destruction.
The memories that live inside you
can either give you a reason to live
or turn you into a graveyard.
I remember how you were wearing a shirt the color of the sky the first time we
met. You told me you loved music, and I asked you to send me a few songs you
love, and you didn’t reply. You had an ocean voice, the kind that can make
anyone fall in love. With time, I lost count of the number of sunsets we watched
together. I no longer remember the number of times I asked you which song you
were humming and you refused to tell me. But I do remember how the day
before the sky took you away, you gave me your playlist and sang me a song, and
I bit my lips and whispered, “stay.” Life left you too soon. You were the music of
my life, and there has only been silence ever since you left. We’re not in the
world anymore. And although this distance doesn’t make me love you less, it
breaks my heart nonetheless.
What good is this success
if it makes you start feeling
ashamed of your roots?
The absence of love teaches you a lot more than its presence ever did.
Don’t make your home
in someone who is foreign
to their own feelings.
But have you seen how your eyes shine, my love?
The sun melts for people like you.
Some days,
I’m so full of light
that I share it with every
person I come across,
but on other days,
I’m just a city
destroyed by floods
hopelessly waiting
for someone to share
their light with me.
– people need people.
The flowers in your chest
need the warmth
of your own love
to bloom.
You must understand
there’s no point
in holding onto someone
when your heart has already
given up on them.
You keep yourself from speaking your heart out when you know your words can
break someone else’s heart. And when that person is someone you once loved
with all your heart, silence is the only option. That’s why you fear telling
someone when you’re falling out of love with them. You get used to their
presence, and you don’t know how your heart will react to their absence. You
want to save their heart and also cease to figure out what your own heart wants.
So you keep holding onto them, and you keep burying your feelings. You don’t
want to break their heart, and you hopelessly wait for them to realize how you
feel on their own.
– matters of the heart
A hopeful heart will brave the storm and also be one.
The world keeps
trying to pull you down
and here you are,
making love with the sky.
Live so wholeheartedly
that when death
kisses your soul,
your spirit dances
in contentment
and not cries in pain.
Let your heart be your guide,
for it knows who will
leave you alone in the storm,
and who will dance with you in the rain.
There’s bravery in choosing not to hurt others.
It’s hard to believe in love and harder to believe in the people who say they love
you. It’s not love if you don’t lay your heart bare in front of someone, and to do
that requires trust, and I fail to trust people easily. For people don’t mean most
of the things they say. They say they love flowers but pluck them. They promise
to stay forever but walk away easily. They’re too fickle-minded to keep promises
and too forgetful to remember how to take care of someone’s heart. So I do not
think you should blame me for finding it hard to trust others; blame the world
for lacking what it takes to love someone genuinely.
I heard the ocean
saying to the sky today,
it is envious of the depths
of the human heart.
Had the ones
with a kind-heart
ruled the world,
there would’ve been
no borders,
only boundless love.
Stay where your soul finds spring.
I wish to run away from these feelings, but they are determined to stay in my
heart. I hate how I feel when I’m next to you. For my heart knows you’re here to
start a war inside me, and I’ve lived a serene life for so long that I don’t wish to
let chaos build a home inside me. You will break my heart, I know, and I hate
how my heart still wishes to be with you, how it waits for you every single day
and wants me to tell you how much it loves you.
A lover’s heart is a flower that
survives wildfires with grace,
and dances fearlessly amidst storms.
There’s nothing more poetic
than our hearts conversing
in moments of shared silence.
Some days
you’re the rain that
brings flowers to life.

Some days
you’re the hurricane that
makes the sky fall to its knees.

But on all days,

you’re equally glorious.
On all days,
you’re breathtakingly powerful.
When darkness surrounds you,
remind yourself of the light
in your own heart.
Allow your heart to leave the ones
who cannot fathom its depths.
I carry rivers in my eyes
mere pain cannot drown me.

My heart finds solace

in the arms of fire,
hatred cannot burn me.

Storms live inside me

your thunder cannot scare me.
Break me and you’ll find
hope and light dancing inside.
If you ask me what is love,
I would tell you about someone
who simply refuses
to leave my heart –
someone who carries
galaxies in their irises,
peace in their arms,
and the ocean in their voice;
someone who feels
like a cold breeze in a desert,
someone whose touch feels like
the kiss of spring to a lifeless tree.
– love isn’t a feeling; it’s a person.
Some people
live oceans away from us
but they still feel like home.
You gifted me flowers
but my heart is only for someone
with whom I can plant gardens together.
It’s all a façade until you
find that one person who
loves you the way
the moon loves the stars,
the bird loves her freedom
and the rain loves her flowers.
Keep whatever fills your heart
with the light of a thousand stars.
Be mindful of whom you help –
some people don’t want
to learn how to fly,
they simply wish
to cut off your wings.
To have someone
who isn’t envious
of your potential
but appreciative of it
is a blessing.
You keep lying to yourself
until your heart is finally ready
to accept the truth.
I buried my feelings
in the ground
and no flower has
blossomed ever since.
It’s beautifully tragic
how rain brings back
the happiest and saddest memories
all at the same time.
You say you’re here to save me from the storm, but I think you’re the storm I
need to save this heart from. You promise to keep me safe, and that scares me,
for I’ve been a lone wolf all my life – bleeding and bruising; but always believing
that I don’t need anyone else to save me. And the doors of my heart are closed
for anyone who makes me feel like I need them to protect myself.
– I’m enough for myself.
It’s tragic how life is cruel
even to the kindest people.
They ask me if I’ve forgotten you. If I’ve started looking at the sky and smiling
again. If tears don’t roll down my eyes every time I meet someone who has the
same name as yours. If festivals have started feeling like festivals to me again. If
spring is finally a season that even I can feel inside my heart. And I pause and
then tell them I’ve not forgotten you, but yes, with time, everything hurts a little
less. Perhaps I will never love the sky the way I used to, but I don’t hate looking
at it anymore. A shiver still runs down my spine every time someone calls your
name, but I have accepted that you’re not going to come back. It’s been forever
since I last listened to my favorite song or ate my favorite dish, but hey, I’m
moving on, slowly, at my own pace. I don’t think I will ever forget you, for
nobody can ever forget someone they have loved with their whole heart. But I
am convinced that we don’t forget people. We just get better at not thinking
about them. And in time, I will master the art of not thinking about you too.
You will meet people who will fill your heart with hope only to leave you empty.
They will promise to protect your heart but will end up breaking it. They will
promise to make you believe in love again and will leave the moment you decide
to give your heart to them. If you meet someone who makes countless promises
but fails to keep any, who says they love you, but it doesn’t show in their eyes
and actions, who promises you the world but does nothing to bring a smile to
your face, I hope you choose to walk away from them and save your heart before
they break it.
This heart has been painting skies for someone
who wishes to stop me from flying.
You break your own heart
by chasing someone
who would never choose you.
There are pieces of my heart
breathing in places and people
who no longer remember me.
There’s this loud silence
that sits between us,
sometimes it’s breathtakingly beautiful,
sometimes it’s heartbreakingly painful.
And some memories are like that,
they fill your heart with joy
and make you feel empty,
all at the same time.
Anxiety is an alarm blaring inside your head, and there’s no way to snooze it.
Your mind turns into a battlefield, and you’re fighting against yourself. You
constantly worry about the most trivial of things and helplessly watch yourself
falling apart. There’s a storm inside you that just won’t get silenced. So when
someone tells me to stop being anxious, as much as I want to say to them I’m
not anxious by choice, I smile and leave. But I hope the next time someone tells
you they’re not feeling okay, that they’re depressed or anxious or simply upset,
listen to them. Listen to them as they speak of their pain and tell you what’s
been bothering them. Don’t tell them what to do. Don’t ask them to stay
strong. Don’t tell them about the time when you felt the same way. Just listen.
Listen as they talk about the mountains they’ve been carrying on their shoulders.
Listen as they tell you why their heart is feeling heavy. For sometimes, we don’t
need profound advice. Sometimes we don’t need someone to fight for us or save
us. Sometimes we simply need someone to whom we can pour our hearts out
without having to think twice. Sometimes we just need someone who would
lend us their ears without passing any judgments. Be that person for someone.
Tell me,
are you my happy ending
or just another chapter?
Some people,
how when they
leave your hand,
your heart sinks.
I wanted you to stay so desperately,
that I ended up pushing you away.
I’ve loved people with all my heart,
but I’m yet to learn how it feels
to be loved the same way.
Here you are,
running behind the people
who don’t love you,
and running away from
those who really do.
It’s strange how someone who does nothing for you can mean so much to you.
You give your heart to heartless people and romanticize the pain that they bring
with themselves. You lose yourself in the eyes of someone who doesn’t care to
read your eyes. You love them despite knowing they do not value your feelings.
You keep forgetting that you don’t deserve someone who makes you feel
unworthy of love. You risk it all for them and watch your heart drowning day by
day while trying to make them fall in love with you.
My heart always knew you wouldn’t stay,
it was me being foolish
hoping my love could
change your mind.
Here I am,
sitting right next to you,
and still feeling like we’re miles apart.
I thought you would stop me from leaving,
I turned back, but you were already gone.
After You Left:
Day-1: A gentle breeze brushes past my skin, and I’m reminded of you. I look
around with restless eyes to find you but to no avail.
Day-5: I’m in literature class. The professor discusses something about Virginia
Woolf. I’m reminded of how you used to sit in class – ankles crossed and left
elbow kept on the table, and how you used to scribble tiny poems at the back of
your notebooks.
Day-10: I pass dusty streets and bustling bazaars, and tears roll down my eyes
like rainfall from a monsoon cloud. I kick a little stone and watch it hop ahead
of me.
Day-15: I delete all our messages and snapshots. Memories are all that I’m left
with now. I watch the sunset alone.
Day-20: I feel the skies are collapsing and realize it’s just my heart.
Day-23: I look at the uneven banks of snow lining the sidewalks. I decide to visit
you.
Day-24: I take a few snowdrop flowers and decide to sing you a song. The
graveyard feels like home now.
You keep breaking my heart,
but I still call you my home;
you keep lying to me
but I still believe in you;
you never apologize
but I still keep giving myself
reasons to forgive you.
You can give your heart
to someone
but it’s their choice
to hold it gently
or break it into pieces.
People say pain comes with an expiry date, but sometimes, pain forgets it was
supposed to be a visitor. Sometimes, it stays. You forget how your days were like
before it built its home inside you. You look for healing in all the places and
people around you, but it is nowhere to be found. And no matter how hard you
try to let go of it, it simply refuses to leave your heart.
Your memories
embrace my heart
and slowly start
eating it up.
I hold you close to myself, but I think you’re not mine. You move your fingers
through my hair and whisper promises of love in my ears, but I think you will be
gone by sunrise. It’s scary how deeply this heart of mine is scared of being in
love. It scares me how I wish to hold onto you. You say you’ve been a bird all
your life, and I’m the only sky that feels like home to you, but how do I believe
you? Maybe you do love me. Perhaps you are here to stay. But how do I tell you
I’m not ready for being left heartbroken again? How do I tell you I’m not ready
to give love another chance? And tell me, how do I save my heart without
breaking yours?
– I’m scared of being in love.
You say you can heal me,
but how do I tell you
that I’m just a flower that
has been plucked
and crushed
and broken apart,
petal by petal
and how can you
heal something
that has already died?
It’s sad how we keep searching
for light in the same person
who had left us alone in the dark.
Love isn’t something that can be planted in your heart against your heart’s will.
Love is something that flows like a stream, and you get submerged in it much
before you get aware of its presence. You’ll be heartbroken, and you will break
hearts too, and I hope you know that denying someone’s love doesn’t make you
heartless. People are allowed to tell you they’ve feelings for you, and you’re
allowed to feel the way you do. Love isn’t always reciprocated, and that’s okay.
Just because someone doesn’t feel the same way about you doesn’t make you any
less worthy of love. And just because the other person doesn’t love you back
doesn’t mean they’re a terrible person. Love is to be shared, not forced or begged
for, and that’s something most of us learn the hard way.
We could’ve been a revolution, but you gave up on us, too soon.
You are sad because
your heart still belongs
to someone who no longer
belongs with you.
You deserve someone
who knows what you love,
and loves who you are.
My heart has been
a lost wanderer
ever since you left,
searching for lost memories
between lines of poems
in yellowed pages of books
and empty cafes
hopelessly hoping to
hear your voice
run towards you
and fall into your arms again.
I know there are storms inside you, and you can feel them ripping you apart,
little by little. I see the sky is shrouded in darkness right now, and you feel like
the sun will never rise again. I know that nothing seems to be going right but
please, please believe that this darkness is only temporary. Sunshine will reach
you, and the colors of the rainbow will embrace your sky soon. So hold on, keep
moving ahead, and don’t let your heart give up.
– persevere
Home is where your soul feels safe.
May you never punish yourself
for someone else’s inability
to see the love in your heart.
We’ve eyes full of stories
and hearts full of memories.
Sometimes you need to say
goodbye to some people
to say hello to your happiness.
Mourn until you master the art of being happy without them.
You will fall in love with two types of people:

– Someone who will decorate your sky with stars.

– Someone who will teach you how to shine alone.
Only the ones with a good heart deserve to enter your soul.
You build walls around your heart and refuse to let anyone build their home
inside you. But in your heart of hearts, you want the walls to reduce to dust. You
want someone to break them all, gently, little by little, with love. You want to
wear your heart on your sleeves and fall in love again. And perhaps what they say
is right – the ones who claim to be afraid of love are also the ones who love the
deepest.
It rained all night the day you died. Flowers wilted, and birds stopped singing.
Trees let go of their leaves despite it being the season of spring. Every fallen leaf
sang a sad song, mourning your loss. The winds say your death brought autumn
to uncountable hearts and made every soul forget what spring feels like. So many
autumns have passed ever since you left. The scent of emptiness swirls all around
me like an autumn breeze, and grief blossoms on the plant of my life like
wildflowers. You rest in the coffin near the parish, and I live in the coffin called
life.
– rest in peace
We spend our nights thinking about the people who’ve forgotten us,
remembering places that no longer remember us, and shedding tears for
someone who’s still not sure if we really care about them. It’s tragic how we
spend our days doing the same things we had promised ourselves not to do. It’s
sad how we care so much about the ones who couldn’t care less about us.
You mustn’t hold onto
something that only hurts you;
be it people, be it memories.
Our stories and struggles are different,
but we all deserve to bloom.
Value your peace more than people’s opinions.
You don’t have to be
the silver lining for someone
who put you through storms.
Love isn’t supposed to burn you,
it’s supposed to make you shine.
All doubt vanishes once you let hope in.
Even if nobody is there for you on days when you don’t feel okay, I hope you
choose to treat yourself with kindness and be there for yourself. I hope you listen
to your favorite song, take a nap, cry if you feel like and go out for a walk. I
hope you don’t let a few bad days convince you to believe that you don’t deserve
happiness. I hope you save yourself and hold yourself together until things get
better.
Sometimes life makes you struggle before you can shine.
Like a rainbow without colors
is a human heart without dreams.
Pain has a habit
of making its home
in the hearts of those
who hurt others.
– karma
Learn from your past
instead of trying to forget it.
Moving on is about
accepting and learning,
not ignoring and forgetting.
By hating others,
you’re hurting your own heart.
Sometimes when someone’s leaving, that’s when we realize how much they
mean to us. Every moment spent with them flashes before our eyes, and all we
want to do is relive every single one of them. All those conversations and
silences, all those times they made you laugh and shared your pain, and
everything in between. You miss all of it, but it’s too late to stop them from
leaving. So while someone is there in your life, while you can hold their hands
and hug them, while you can look into their eyes and see love dancing in their
irises, take time out to tell them how much you appreciate their presence. Tell
them how much they mean to you and how your life wouldn’t be the same
without them being in it. Tell them how much you adore every little thing they
do for you. Tell them how much you value the efforts they make for you. And
love them. Love them as much as you can, and never let them go.
The feelings that suffocate your heart
also, give life to your heart.
I hope you find fireflies to give you hope every time you feel lost in the darkness.
A shooting star to guide you through every hard night. Sunflowers to fill you
with a light on days when negativity surrounds you. And on days when you find
no light around you, I hope you remind yourself of the magic that lives in your
own heart and choose to be your own glimmer of hope.
Your soul deserves a love
that is serene
like the sunset-sky,
a love that feels like
fresh flowers,
old songs,
and poetry.
My heart wants me
to dive into oceans
and shoot for the stars.
It wants me
to paint rainbows on the moon
and be my own silver lining.
To sit in silence
and listen to the voice
I’ve been running away from
since forever.

My heart wants me to take risks;

it wants me to feel what
I’m scared of feeling –
it wants me to give life another chance;
it wants me to fall in love again.
Just like a sunset
happiness is
eternally beautiful
but short-lived.
Some people are just tragedies dressed as fairytales.
Have faith in the power of kindness –
rivers stop flowing,
mountains reduce to dust
and hearts melt in no time.
My heart looks at everyone with overflowing compassion and believes they too
shelter kindness in their souls. I have been hurt, but my heart doesn’t let me
hurt others, not even the ones who are responsible for my pain. And I guess
everyone has a heart like that, and everyone’s capable of kindness and
forgiveness. But, sadly, most people don’t let their hearts guide them. It’s sad
that people suppress the voice of their conscience and don’t feel bad when they
mistreat others. To be kind in a world that has forgotten its roots and values is
an act of valiance, and I hope more people will choose to be brave instead of
being someone who hates and hurts others.
– kindness and forgiveness
Love isn’t only about expectations; it’s also about
acceptance.
And most people suffer in love because they fail to acknowledge this.
Filling your mother’s heart with joy
is not a favor you do to her,
it’s a duty you must
take pride in fulfilling.
You keep trying to
make everyone in your
world happy
but forget to put a smile
on the faces of the ones
who brought you
into the world.
Sometimes family is just
pieces of a puzzle
scattered around a house,
hopelessly waiting for someone
to put them all back together
and make a home again.
Let love take
all the space in your heart;
let there be no room
for hatred left inside you.
Some hearts speak the
language of love so fluently
that even the ones
who claim to not believe in love
unfold in front of them
the way flowers do
after a shower of rain.
Love takes people’s hearts
in its hands
and turns them into rainbows,
and the hate that they had been
carrying inside them
for so long
gently slips away.
Love will make your heart both,
the sky and the storm.
My heart is not a garden
where you can plant love
only to eventually walk away.

I’m not a summerhouse

you can enter and leave
at convenience.
I’m not a shade for travelers
to rest under.

My heart only
lets someone enter it
when they carry
love in their heart,
respect in their eyes,
and warmth in their actions.

This heart is only for those

who genuinely feel like home.
Beautiful are the hearts that are kind to others.
The day we met,
the flowers in my heart
told me,
you are the sun
they were waiting for.
Seeing you shine in the dark,
even the moon fell to its knees.
The day you said you loved me,
the sparrows sang soulful songs
the sun smiled in joy
and the clouds blushed away.

The flowers told me that together,

we made a beautiful poem,
and the sky smiled back.
Love:
– Rainy afternoons, when nature is intoxicated with the fragrance of flowers.
– Sparrows chirping in delight
– My mother feeding stray dogs. The dogs have a soul. I can feel it every time
they dance in joy, looking at my mom.
– Kids waiting for the ice-cream man and running towards him the moment
they see him.
– The stars talking to the moon, and the moon ignoring them all. For despite
being surrounded by so many stars, the moon is in love with solitude.
– Reading poems in people’s eyes.
– Reading poets who write about things other than love.
You took the autumn
out of my soul,
that’s why I fell for you.
Your name can
freeze flowing rivers,
make stars fall to the ground,
give hope to broken hearts,
and set mine on fire.
You entered my life
and it felt like
the end of a brutal war,
and the start of an era of soulful music.
You say there will come a time when I won’t love you anymore. And I wonder if
the flowers can ever stop loving the sun. If the trees can ever stop loving spring.
If the rain can ever stop loving the earth. But I don’t tell you that. I don’t tell
you that I will hold onto your memories if you don’t hold my hand. That even
if someday, I am left with no choice but to walk away, I will leave my heart
behind. And if you leave, I will call your name in empty rooms, search for you in
every raindrop and never stop waiting for you to come back. I don’t tell you that
you may leave me, but my love for you won’t leave my heart. But what I do tell
you is that these feelings are storms. I tell you that these feelings may leave my
heart someday, but they will leave me destroyed.
I wish to be someone’s favorite poem –
the one that feels like home to them
and always stays in their heart;
the one that gives them strength
when nothing seems to make sense;
the one that holds them gently
on days when the world seems
to be pushing them away.
I wish to be that poem for someone.
Your voice does to my heart
what rain does to flowers.
Expectations and selfishness complicate things. Love simplifies them.
Even the flowers are jealous
seeing you blossom in the storm.
You cannot stay
when there’s sunshine
and walk away
when there’s a storm
and call it love.
Share your light with those flowers
who feel they don’t deserve to bloom.
Life is too short
to stay with someone
who kills your peace.
I no longer feel guilty
about putting myself first,
because I’m tired of
giving my best to the people
who leave me alone at my worst.
The worst part is that
I want you to stay
but don’t know how to
stop you from leaving.
Stay with the one
who has seen both,
the stars in your eyes
and the storms in your heart
and loved you regardless.
If they keep walking away and coming back,
you must close the door on them forever.
Some people do not believe in magic, and some people are magic themselves.
They burn like candles to give light even to the ones who forget to thank them
for it. They fill the hearts of others even on days when they themselves feel
empty on the inside and feel like the sun to people, giving light to their souls.
Such people are rare and precious, and their kind hearts are a blessing to this
world. So when you find someone like that, someone so selfless and kind, I hope
you choose to be a little kinder to them than you usually are to people. I hope
you take their hands in your own and thank them with your whole heart. I hope
your kindness gives them a reason to continue being kind to others.
When things don’t feel right, just keep walking. You’ll cross those rivers and
climb all those mountains. Fall but never forget that you deserve to fly. Your
heart deserves to bloom, not break. Even the most beautiful stories have some
bad chapters in them, and that’s okay.
You deserve to watch the most beautiful sunsets with someone who has the most
beautiful heart. You deserve to laugh until your stomach hurts and your cheeks
turn pink. You deserve to dance in joy and be loved in all the seasons. You, my
friend, deserve the best things in the world, and may you never let anyone tell
you otherwise.
 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rithvik Singh is an empath who practices kindness and composes poetry.

You can connect with him on Instagram - @wordsofrithvik.