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Recent write-ups by Shikhar Pathak

Forever When I'll be in a state of zero Youth also may have changed its colour Only the last stop will remain yet to cover I w...

Sunday, 6 April 2025

A poet without a muse

What is a metaphor without a face to rest upon?
I have built entire worlds of beauty—
soft similes, aching alliterations,
lines that could clothe a soul,
or undress it gently under moonlight.

But there’s no one here
to slip into the language I stitched.

No collarbone to carry my metaphors,
no palm to pour my sonnets into,
no laughter to stretch the meaning of joy,
no silence to sip my metaphysics like warm wine.

I am a poet debarred of purpose,
a candle burning in a room that no one enters.
My ink does not dry—it drowns.
It waits.

I have metaphors of rain,
but no skin to receive it.
I have verses of longing,
but no eyes to read them aloud.

It is a strange exile—
to be full of love,
and yet so utterly
unloved.

Wednesday, 26 March 2025

And I learnt to live



I was always afraid of love. The thought of falling for someone only to lose her one day terrified me. How could I bear the absence of the one who would bring me my mornings, whose sleepy voice would carry my nights into dreams?


I had seen hearts shatter, dreams dissolve into tears, and every time, I reminded myself—I must not fall in love. I knew love’s beauty, I could feel its purity, but I kept my distance, fearing the inevitable ache that would follow.


Yet, one day, love found me. A love so deep, so all-consuming, that there was nothing beyond it.


Mornings arrived only when she sent a Good Morning with a little heart. The day unfolded over coffee and whispered dreams from the night before. And nights… nights never really came. At three in the morning, I would weave her breath into the moonlight, creating our own jazz music—a rhythm of the days to come.


Even at work, I wasn’t truly there. In my mind, I was walking along the edge of a cemetery, a basket of white lilies in hand. The flowers rustled softly, and as they fell, they left a trail—one that led her back to me by dusk.


But then, one day, the lilies were gone. The sun overslept. The day forgot to rise. The night refused to rest.


She left. My beloved left.


And the very thing I had feared all along happened.


For days, I cried. It felt as though someone had driven a knife straight into my chest—not just left it there, but twisted it every so often, ensuring the wound never closed. The pain was relentless, the bleeding endless. And yet, I did not die. I remained.


Days passed. My phone no longer vibrated. The silence settled into my bones.


Then, one day, I gathered the courage to rise. I opened my diary and began to write—where it all began, where it all ended. I stitched together the dreams I had lived and the ones that never got their chance.


And somewhere between those pages, I

 learnt to live again.


#Heartbreak #LoveAndLoss #Healing #MovingOn #UnfinishedDreams #LostLove #WritingToHeal #LessonsInLove #BrokenButAlive #NewBeginnings #SilentGoodbyes #LearningToLive #DiaryOfTheHeart #UnwrittenStories



Saturday, 22 March 2025

The Lament of My Heart

 The Lament of My Heart


I have seen love slip through my fingers, not with a storm’s rage, but with the quiet cruelty of fading light. One moment, it was ours; the next, it belonged to only me.


Perhaps this is the greatest tragedy—not that love was impossible, nor that the world conspired against it, but that it ended only for one. I find myself standing in the hollowed-out remains of something once so vast, so consuming, and yet now reduced to a whisper in the corridors of memory. She was here once. Her laughter still lingers in the spaces where silence now reigns. And though she has left, I remain, tethered to what once was, unable—or perhaps unwilling—to step into what comes next.


I wonder if she felt it slipping away, or if love, for her, ended so gently that she never needed to mourn it. Maybe it was not an ending at all, just a quiet closing of a chapter she had already outgrown. I do not resent her for it. Love is not a prison; it must be held freely or not at all. But what does one do with a love unreturned, with words unsaid and tenderness that has no place to go?


They say time heals, that distance dulls the ache. But some loves are not meant to be forgotten; they become woven into the fabric of who we are. And so, I do not fight the memory of her. I let it stay, let it haunt me in the quiet hours, let it remind me that for a moment—however fleeting—I loved and was loved. And if that is all I am left with, then perhaps it is enough.

Wednesday, 19 March 2025

Love That Asked for Nothing

Why expect courtesy from me, or a pledge of allegiance? A madman has the right to lose himself—why should that be a surprise?


I had set forth the moment the thought of you took hold, and now, your face appears in the mirror like an echo of something lost yet never truly mine.


What fear should I have of wounds when my own steps have begun inscribing them? If madness knows no measure of loss, why would it seek restraint?


He who learns to love dearly finds beauty in all—then where does rivalry fit among those whose hearts are full?


She made me the centre of love and then walked away. But if hate finds no room here, what meaning would enmity hold?


And so, I stand here, eyes lowered, hesitant yet present—after all, I had considered this before coming, so why now ask for permission?


Come, beloved of a city that never truly called me its own—come and see what your indifference has made of me.


I had arrived with my heart resting upon my palms, offering it as if it were meant to be yours. But now that it has slipped, shattered—what grievance could I possibly hold?