I used to be a lousy writer, thinking I am so clever because I made up some rhymes. Then you came into my life. I used to share them with you, and you said you thought they were beautiful. Then you went out of my life, slowly, every day lapsed between your replies acting like a shard of glass against my skin and when there were enough cuts for the blood to become orange, I wrote a poem on autumn. I wrote a poem on sunsets. You made me a poet, but I can't share my poems with you anymore. You are the artist who never got to see his art. You know what is beautiful? What time does to wounds.
Since you left, people look at me with pity and each time, I mock them internally. They don't know the grand plan, the very clever scheme of making sure you never leave. They don't know that the process of love begins with compensation. Love enters the door and the first thing it says is, "be more like them." And we obey, so happily, we take an honour in doing it. What we don't realise is that it's not an excited squeal of passion, nor an irrational desire to do the futile. It's a warning, a brutal promise that I am going to replace the oxygen in your lungs, and when I leave, you will not be able to breathe unless you have a copy of me. you better become a copy of me. So when people look at me with concern, I giggle like a child as if at an inside hidden joke, which is so hidden that all of us get it. So sad that all of us cry. I still have you, for I became you.
Maitri Shukla
Kamla Nehru College, University of Delhi
Writing, for Maitri, is a way to express herself in ways not quite possible verbally. Anyone who has met her once will be able to tell that she is an introvert with an acting-awkward streak, that is if they managed to spot her in the first place. Apart from her great love for literature, Maitri also likes singing, drawing, trying new things, and making new friends, ironically enough.
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