Unlived

I am a congregation of unfinished lives.

When I close my eyes, I see them — all the men I never became, standing shoulder to shoulder in some celestial corridor of what-ifs, waiting neither in grief nor accusation, but in quiet companionship.

One of them is a renunciate. He speaks rarely. He lives beneath the sky and prays not to gods, but to stillness. He is a pandit, not by ritual but by rhythm — the rhythm of the sacred breath, of mantra and memory. He knows peace, the kind that smells of sandalwood and silence. I have touched that life, once, briefly — in the way I once touched the Vedas — not to understand, but to feel what I was missing.

Another is a professor — pale-eyed and half-wrinkled from pages and pens. He teaches philosophy in a sun-drenched university town. He has long dialogues with younger versions of himself who arrive as students. He drinks bitter black coffee and writes letters he never posts. He is alone, but never lonely.

Somewhere in a colder city lives the lover I never became — the one who said yes when she asked for forever. He works in a newsroom, returns home with ink on his fingers, reads poetry out loud in the kitchen. They fight. They make up. They grow old together. I visit him sometimes in dreams.

There's also a revolutionary — wild-eyed, speech heavy, purpose burning. He gave up family and fame. He leads marches that are never covered on television. He knows that the system won’t bend, but he still screams at it with all his heart. He has scars. Some of them on his skin. Most of them invisible.

And then there’s the hermit — the one who left it all. The boy who walked into the Himalayas and never came back. People think he died. But I know better. He dissolved. Into winds, into scriptures, into stars.

I’ve loved them all. I’ve betrayed them all.

I never had the courage to choose. Or perhaps I had the wisdom not to.

Because each of them is a limb of my soul — and I, this half-shaped man who writes, am not their failure, but their witness.

I walk carrying their voices. Their hungers. Their renunciations.

And maybe, just maybe — when I finally come undone — I will not be remembered as a man who lived a great life,

but as the one who heard all his unlived ones calling…

…and didn’t turn away.

We Were Never Lovers, Yet Everything Was Lost

We were never lovers.

There were no midnight confessions, no trembling hands folded into each other’s palms, no declarations to the stars.

And yet, what passed between us could not be confined to friendship, nor described by the dry language of fate.

It was something ancient. Something hovering just beyond articulation—like a word trapped forever on the tip of the universe’s tongue.

To know her was to feel a quiet ache beneath the bones—an ache that resembled longing, yet never dared to bloom into it.

She and I danced on the edge of something immense.

And we never jumped.

But oh, how the world shifted in that pause.

There are some silences so loud they shape the course of things. Ours was such a silence.

A soft severing. A wound dressed in grace.

At a moment—fragile, fleeting—she wished for it.

For loss.

Not in cruelty. Not in arrogance. But in weariness.

Perhaps the weight of “what might be” became heavier than the comfort of “what is.”

Perhaps she feared the mirror I held too steadily for her to shatter.

And so, she stepped away. Not with anger. Not with goodbye.

Just… absence.

A quiet undoing of a bond that never found a name.

I bore the aftermath not like a heartbreak, but like an unspent storm.

I did not grieve the end of a love story—we never had one.

I grieved the death of a possibility.

Of a sacred union that would have asked for no performance, only presence.

She may have lost someone who would have worshipped the soil beneath her self-doubt, who would have read her silences like scripture.

But what I lost—what we lost—was something far more irreplaceable.

The world lost a softness it so desperately needed.

A tenderness that could have unfolded into poems and prayers,

Into a quiet revolution of warmth.

Our separation was not merely a personal sorrow.

It was a cosmic misstep.

A fracture in the universe’s deeper narrative.

For what we might have become—together—was not just love.

It was light.

And now, that light lies unlit—somewhere between what was felt and what was never said.

And that, I believe, is not just my loss.

It is the world’s.

To Love Her Was to Be Undone

To love her was to be undone — slowly, and with full awareness.

Not by betrayal, nor cruelty,

but by the quiet weight of being misunderstood.

She did not see the ache behind my stillness,

nor the trembling restraint in every word I never said.

She thought me unwell, obsessive perhaps —

but what she called madness was simply this:

I had no self left outside her.

She had become breath. Pulse.

My days moved as her shadow did.

And still, I asked for nothing.

Even when I was burning, I folded my pain gently

so it would not disturb her peace.

She never truly looked —

or maybe she looked through the eyes of others,

who never touched my silence,

never knew how I worshipped her in ways

that felt more like prayer than possession.

So she left — and I let her.

I bore the blame, her doubt, her silence.

If hating me made it easier for her to live,

I gave her that too.

But the wound remains.

Not because she went,

but because she never knew

that someone once loved her

so completely,

he forgot what it meant to be a person

without her.

If Ever There Were an English Mushaira...

If ever there were an English mushaira,

it wouldn’t begin with applause—

but with a silence that settles like soft dusk upon a tired city.

No spotlight, no raised hand—just a voice,

spilling like warm tea into porcelain twilight.

There’d be no declarations, no stage bravado—

only the gentle unfolding of metaphors,

like a lover untying the knot in a letter

they’ve read too many times to count.

A poet would rise not to perform,

but to confide.

And we would listen—not to respond,

but to remember something we had forgotten

in the bustle of being.

Perhaps someone would speak of grief

not as a tragedy, but a companion—

and another would turn longing into a landscape

where no country has borders, and every silence is sacred.

There’d be no winners. No final round.

Only verses—draped across hearts like shawls in December.

And somewhere in the back,

someone would whisper, “How strange... I’ve never heard English ache like this before.”

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.

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

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.

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?

The Arithmetic of Love

 The Arithmetic of Love

Time is a ruthless accountant. It neither forgives the principal nor waives the interest. It keeps track of every moment, every promise, every breath. And love? Love is no exception to this arithmetic. Every moment in love is a transaction—sometimes a gift, sometimes a debt, and sometimes a burden so heavy that even fate cannot clear it.

Some bonds are quiet, but their silence is profound. They do not speak in words but in nuances. That’s how it was with her—few words, yet every conversation a puzzle. I wished for some dialogues to stretch, for some feelings to unfold, but she always stopped just where hearts could have unraveled.

What use is recognition if I slip from her gaze and fall from her heart? What victory is there in being known when the one who once held my existence dear now walks past me like a stranger? To be accepted yet abandoned is a paradox too cruel to bear.

I knew that hoping for truth was a stubborn dream, yet my heart clung to the illusion that maybe, just maybe, a flower of affection might still bloom. But one who hesitates to offer even a smile—how could she ever hand over her heart?

Love’s paradox is such that even in leisure, I am occupied. A single moment is vast enough to hold an eternity, and I find myself lost within it. I sit idle, yet my mind is crowded with her presence.

The prison of memories is a peculiar one. No chains, no guards, yet an inescapable captivity. And I, too, have become its prisoner—so much so that the routines of life now seem foreign. I have forgotten that the world has its own rhythm, its own customs, which I no longer seem to follow.

Sometimes, I feel her footsteps echo in my heart. Some dust stirs within me, as though she is passing by—like a breeze that lifts the past and scatters it. And perhaps, I too will turn to dust—carried away by the wind, fading into a forgotten tale.

Love ends in the strangest ways. The same person who wields the dagger is also the one who bleeds from it. Perhaps I, too, have died, slain by the very wounds she gave me. And yet, somewhere within me, I continue to live—trapped in the prison of her memory, while time, as always, keeps its accounts—collecting both the interest and the principal.

Meaning of home

 

The journey, though arduous, has finally found its completion. Having passed through temples and shrines, my heart now feels like home—a sanctuary beyond stone and sanctity. The hardships of the path, the stories soaked in blood, and the melancholies scattered at every turn all weave together an image where my past still breathes. Those who witness my wounds gaze upon them as though, among all lovers, mine alone bleeds the deepest, the brightest, the most unguarded.

It is at least a solace that my home has now turned into a desert—vast, open, boundless. At the very least, it is better than being confined within walls and locked doors. Sometimes, I wonder whether what I have gained was ever truly mine, or if the echoes of my steps were simply meant to be lost amidst shifting sands.

The tale of my longing was heard till dawn, but the mention of my beloved far exceeded my own presence. Perhaps that is the only way a love story is told—with their name spoken in abundance and my existence reduced to a mere whisper. My teary eyes betray my silence, and I only fear that the healers may decipher my wounds, for I have long mastered the art of concealing them.

When they saw me drenched in sorrow, they laughed, as if to say—"So, you have finally drowned your home in the tide of your grief." And in that moment, I knew—what I called home was never mine to keep.

The Ordeal of an Expressive Lover

An expressive lover loves not in whispers but in symphonies, not in glimpses but in portraits painted with passion. They write letters that may never be read, sing melodies that may never be heard, and dream in colours too vivid for the world’s monochrome heart. They romanticise the mundane, find poetry in the ordinary, and surrender themselves to the art of longing—only to be told they love too much, feel too deeply, and expect too grandly.

Their love is an ocean, but the world is content sipping from puddles. So, they are left aching—not because they are unloved, but because their love often overwhelms, intimidates, or is mistaken for mere dramatics. They become poets of unreciprocated affection, architects of castles no one wishes to dwell in.

Yet, an expressive lover does not know how to be otherwise. They will always love in metaphors and devotion, in sighs that echo through time, in letters sealed with the fragrance of their soul. Even in heartbreak, they find beauty. Even in absence, they find meaning.

For in their very being, love is not a mere sentiment—it is existence itself.

Seven Seconds

 They say that in the final seven seconds before leaving this world, one’s entire life flashes before their eyes like a reel. In those moments, every unfinished and fulfilled dream, joy, sorrow, sin, virtue, longing, regret, and accomplishment unfolds before them.

It is said that before his eyes passed a boy, holding a broomstick like a bat, acknowledging an imaginary crowd like Sachin. Dressed in a leather jacket like Sunil Shetty, a matchstick clenched between his teeth, setting the world ablaze. Dancing like Govinda to "Saaton janam tujhkoh paate, gori dete nainan mein hum bas jaate!" Taking revenge for every injustice in the world like Mithun.

Changing the world in a day like Anil Kapoor from Nayak. Beating Usain Bolt while walking backward, winking as he does. Writing stories, turning every written tale into reality. Preserving love letters, touching them over and over. Watching the rainwater fill the paddy fields while lying on a cot.

Losing himself in a pair of incredible, hope-filled eyes. Embracing every longing, every wait, making peace with them once and for all. Writing Rekha on his palm like Bachchan, using a permanent marker.

Perhaps the last seven seconds truly belong to oneself. If not the reel of life, then at least the reel of death should be breathtaking.

A land drenched in time

We, the voyagers of longing, do waver oftentimes,

Life itself here treads so slow, in softened, muted chimes.

Not deep wounds, but the healing touch, unsettles me within,

For every gash that fate bestows, a balm awaits akin.

None await my steps today, no eyes in yearning dwell,

O cupbearer, pour! For time abounds, and moments bid me well.

Judge not my youth by years alone, nor age by greying strands,

For wisdom’s weight oft tips the scales, where knowledge sternly stands.

I am but counted, placed, and marked, like tokens on a board,

Yet I hold no will to move—while "we" are vast and scored.

The solace of release is scarce, the struggle ne’er subsides,

The torment of the soul remains, in tides that ever ride.

How long shall fleeting respite last, how brief this borrowed calm,

When cries of woe and grief resound, like ever-ringing psalms?

I dust the heavens' will away, defying sacred thread,

For Eve was but a fleeting tale, while Adam’s woes have spread.

We, entangled in worldly woe, in ceaseless toil remain,

Where love’s soft whispers call to us, but time resists its reign.

O Aish, sow not thy words in soil where sorrow sways,

For this is land too drenched in tears

—where earth itself decays.

Of Nights, Nothingness, and the Gentle Folly of Being

 

I have drifted through days steeped in nothingness—a peculiar emptiness that neither burdens nor frees. And I have come to believe that if a day turns lazy, it is better to sleep it away. Sleep, after all, is not a waste; it is an investment, repaid with the quiet currency of a conscious night. Nights are beautiful—you just have to remain awake long enough to witness their grace. They arrive with a certain stillness, a freshness woven into their darkness. Unlike daylight, darkness does not dazzle; it rests softly upon the eyes, as though cradling them. Eyes accustomed to the dark are gifts—they see without the arrogance of light.

In such hours, you may find yourself staring at sleeping people, pondering their fragile state. They lie so still, surrendered to dreams they’ll never fully recall. Some sleep with their eyes half-open, as if reluctant to let go of the world. Some with mouths ajar, mid-whisper to a thought long forgotten. Some snore, some murmur secrets, some curl into odd shapes that defy comfort. A few even sleep with tears clinging to the corners of their eyes—silent confessions glistening in the moonlight. They will never know. But you, the quiet observer, might come to know them in ways they’ve never known themselves. You might form opinions, uninvited yet inevitable. You might frown, smile, or even laugh softly at the absurd poetry of their unconscious selves. Perhaps, you might feel gratitude—for their unwitting companionship in the stillness. But things become complicated when they’re awake.

I carry within me a gentle folly: I understand the past with painful clarity, I’m endlessly curious about the future, yet I cannot inhabit either. The present is my obsession—a fleeting, fickle thing I keep chasing like a shadow that slips through my fingers. I’ve traded many precious nights—especially the ones before exams—for the transient ecstasy of reading poets. Their words intoxicate me more than any success ever could.

Tonight—or perhaps it’s morning now—I’ve done it again. I watched a film, stared at indifferent stars, read Keats and Kamala Das, and thought… a lot.

I imagined myself on the banks of an immature river, its waters still learning the art of flowing. The moon was the lone sentinel in the sky, casting its cold glow upon the restless ripples. I dove in. The water filled my ears, seeping into the hollow corridors of my skull, washing away the last traces of warmth and thought. I let the river carry me—through forests, beneath bridges of ancient roots, into adventures with no end and no purpose. I let myself go numb, surrendered to the beautiful futility of it all.

I have never been drunk, but I wonder—if drinking doesn’t offer such journeys, what is the point of its practice?

Then, in the whim of thought, I imagined the same river under the sun’s gaze, and just like that, my mood was ruined. Light reveals too much, strips away the mystery, lays everything bare. But darkness… darkness allows things to exist without explanation.

My grandmother once told me a story about a city of blind people. They slept through their days and thrived in the night, not out of choice but nature’s decree. Their blindness made the day irrelevant, and the night—a realm of productivity and purpose. I’m grateful this world isn’t blind. I’m grateful people still sleep at night, surrendering their consciousness to dreams and leaving the nights tender and unclaimed. That’s what makes the night sacred.

Let people toil under the tyranny of the sun, exhaust themselves into sleep. Let me remain awake whenever I can—silent, still, a mirror to the sleeping world.

Ah, the sun is out now. My time to sleep. And if I wake later, burdened by the guilt of having done nothing useful this morning, I shall put the blame where it belongs—on the sweet, drowsy poetry of the night.

Selfless Love

Love, in its truest form, does not barter. It does not weigh, does not measure, does not seek recompense. It simply is—an unbroken expanse, stretching beyond need, beyond self, beyond time.

I have loved like that.

Not in the way the world understands love, with its tallying of affections, its silent contracts of give and take. Mine has been a love that watches from a distance, steady and unshaken, asking for nothing in return.

I have written words knowing they may never be read, offered hands that may never be held, stood guard over dreams that may never include me. And yet, I have never once thought of love as loss. How can it be, when it has never been about possession?

There is a quiet joy in this....loving without asking, giving without keeping count. It is the kind of love that does not wane with absence, that does not grow bitter with neglect. It lingers in unsent messages, in silent prayers, in the certainty that somewhere, someone I cherish exists, breathes, lives.

Perhaps the world calls it foolish. Perhaps they do not understand. But I do.

Love is not about being seen. It is not about being chosen. It is about being there—even when no one is looking.

@shikharpath