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Lalit Kumar Mar 26
She had this habit of stealing my pens. Not in a careless way—no, she’d always take them with this playful smirk, twirling them between her fingers as if claiming them as her own.

"You have too many," she’d say, slipping one into her bag.

"And you never have one," I’d counter, watching her tuck it away like a prize.

It became our thing. Every time we met—at coffee shops, libraries, or even just in my car—she’d end up with one of my pens. And every time I pretended not to mind, but secretly, I started carrying extras. Just for her.

One evening, as she sat across from me, doodling absentmindedly on a napkin with yet another stolen pen, I asked, "Do you even use them, or do they just pile up somewhere?"

She grinned, biting her lip. "Maybe I just like taking something of yours with me."

I didn’t respond, just watched her trace circles on the napkin, my stolen pen spinning between her fingers.

Months later, we drift apart. Not suddenly—just a slow, quiet unraveling. The messages become shorter, the calls less frequent. And then, one day, there’s only silence.

One afternoon, I’m looking for something in my desk drawer when I see it—a pen. Not mine. Hers. The only one she ever left behind.

I pick it up, twirling it between my fingers the way she used to. I don’t even try to use it. I just hold it there, wondering if, somewhere in her bag, my pens still exist. If, in some quiet moment, she finds one and remembers me too.

Some people don’t take things to keep them. They take them to hold onto a feeling.

And maybe, just maybe, she held onto me too.
Lalit Kumar Mar 26
We are at a café we often visit, sitting across from each other, the same way we always do. She loves their cinnamon biscuits, the kind that crumbles at the touch but melts in your mouth with warmth. She always saves the last one for later, wrapping it in a tissue and slipping it into her bag.

Today, she does the same. But as she reaches for her bag, it tips slightly, and the biscuit drops. A tiny crack runs through it. She sighs, about to leave it, but I pick it up, carefully brushing off invisible crumbs, and hand it back.

"Still good," I say.

She looks at me, amused, and shakes her head before tucking it away again.

I don’t know why I remember that moment so much. Maybe because it was just like us—delicate but still holding together.

Months later, I’m searching for something in the backseat of my car when I find it. A tiny, forgotten bundle of tissue paper tucked between the seats. The biscuit. The one she saved that day.

She isn’t here anymore. Not in this car, not in my life. But the biscuit is. A fragile piece of something that once was.

I hold it in my palm for a moment, then unwrap it gently. It's crumbled now, beyond saving. But I don’t throw it away. Not yet. Instead, I close my fist around it, just for a second, before letting it slip between my fingers.

Some things aren’t meant to last forever. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t once whole.
Bless Kurunai Mar 18
It began in just a normal year, only two decades too late,
And it ended before it got to start, it must've been fate
And I know, how you'd like to feel when you walk hastily down the street
Look both sides, up and down as you tremble in your feet
We both hated this world, with the heart we claimed to lack,
That's the only thing that didn't change, as we went to turn our back
We both got what we wanted, it just happened to be none
So why doubt myself, I've done what I've done.
I could never really feel what they’d like to call as pain,
Light and dark, oh ***** all that, I could only see chains.
So I write to you, you know not because I'm sad,
Or happy for that matter, unless I have gone mad.
I don't write either, because I miss the thought of you
Why I write to you, my dear, oh only if I knew
Still tell me how much time it takes for your, one day to pass?
In the clouds what shapes you see, as you lay alone in the grass?
How many times have you quit smoking, since we last spoke?
And how many meals are left in you, before you’ll get broke?
Did you finish the novel you wished to write since you were fifteen?
Or do you still space out, whenever you stare deep into your screen?
Do you still wake up late at night, yelling in your dreams?
Answering the wretched questions you heard in your father's screams.
Do you still need me to comfort you, and tell you, he was wrong,
And replace all his silence with my cheap makeshift songs.
As for me, if you care to ask, it is going exactly how you'd think.
I stopped evolving long ago, existing in just the missing link
Between a man, and what you may call, a tattered lost ghost.
3 A.M, closed window and the smell of burning toast.
As coherent as I try to be, I still remain who I am
A broken car on an empty road, stuck in a traffic jam.
Yes I still blame myself, for the faults of the outside world,
As I stare blankly at the night, with my hair in a slight twirl,
And I still have allergies of anything slightly from the past,
I don't look both ways when crossing the road, and I walk a bit too fast
So what else, did I not have to say? i said nothing with all these lines,
Like a dead star, from far away, which for you still somehow shines.
So let me say sorry at first, for everything you don't feel,
When we meet in our next life, I’ll be owing you a meal
Until then, I'll just be a shadow on your wall, 3 past midnight
When the only light in your room is from a broken streetlight.
We share a home knitted sweater
That says, “Love Makes Everything Better”
We canoodle on the couch
Made solely of leather
And we brush our teeth together,
Infinitely tethered..

Every moment
Of every day
I wish
I could’ve been
smarter
Richer,
Just more to be proud of,
But she promised
she’ll still love me forever.

And if her words break me,
I’ll marry the weather

If her tongue shakes me
I’ll kiss her goodbye

I think about the moment when we break apart
I’ve never cried harder

Her tearing my heart out,
Fleeing our safe ground,
Feeling weighed down.

If she leaves some of me would die
I have zero doubt

But a woman doesn’t make me,

She can only take my love

She can only tear me down

But it’s a risk I’m willing to take

Doesn’t matter if I’m only blinded by her voice
Doesn’t matter if I’m walking off the edge of my ship
Doesn’t matter if I fall into the deepest pits of hell

Cause a women doesn’t make me,
But she can still **** me inside

My beautiful siren
Won’t you be my bittersweet bride..
3/15/25
Q Mar 15
All that glitters is not gold
But beyond the waking world
Wonderland calls to me
I find myself entranced
by these glimmers of warmth in my mind.
Before the bitterness of reality took over
These memories of ghosts long past
are sweetened with vulnerability
I savor them again and again
Unable or perhaps unwilling
To separate myself from their thrall
It seems i can't forget these thoughts,
So i work myself untill i am taut,
Untill not a single pondering is bought.
But still i stop then i am caught.
Caught in the thoughts, that cause me such wrought.
It seems i will never forget your denim shorts,
Or your hair, or the way we talked
for in my mind these things are caught ,
And no matter how hard i've fought,
I just can't forget these thoughts.
Maryann I Feb 26
Oh, restless ache that stirs my soul,
a whisper woven in the wind,
you call with voices soft and low,
yet echo deep, yet burn within.

You stretch beyond my mortal hold,
a silver thread, a trembling light,
a distant hand I cannot grasp,
yet reach for still in endless flight.

To yearn is but to walk the edge,
to chase the dawn, to beg the night,
to thirst for what the stars conceal,
to wander lost yet burn so bright.

You shimmer in the lover’s sigh,
in letters sent but left unread,
in lips that part with words unsaid,
in dreams that wake and turn to dust.

To yearn is but to know the ache
of time that bends but does not break,
of shadows cast by what could be,
of steps retraced through memory.

Oh, yearning, cruel and bittersweet,
you press your weight against my chest,
a longing not for what has been,
but for the dream I never met.

I hold you close, though you are pain,
for you are proof that I still live—
a heart unscarred by hollow days,
a soul that dares, that dares to give.
Yearning is both a hunger and a heartbeat—an ache for something just out of reach, a dream that lingers on the edge of reality.  

————

I love writing based on topics, words, or themes that others give me. What should I write about next?
ibraheem Feb 24
Stood by the entrance of a coffee shop,
Dark green t-shirt, burnt papers in hand,
The last exam solved, the weight lifting off my shoulders.

Friends around, a drink in hand—laughter in the air.

If I had known that was the last time I’d see you,
I would have cherished every second.

I would have gone for the hug instead of the fist bump.

I would have taken a picture with you, by the mirror,
So time couldn’t steal the moment away.

I would have ignored the world—every friend, every noise—
And given you my full attention.

I would have frozen time in the moment we stood side by side.

I would have known that your journey home
Was the path that would separate us.

I would have looked into your eyes and stayed there,
My gaze filled with nothing but love.
anna Feb 23
It's 2015, summertime, with
an afternoon sunshine
gently roasting the cheeks
of a little girl into a
healthy flush. The sweet
sanctuary of the cafe after
school; a fresh playground
amidst the summer heat.
Familiarity, an endless finality of
every poster and notice
memorised through timeless
hours, teaching her
how to read through adverts for
baby sitters
ballet instructors
late-night knitting groups.
School tie discarded, slung
over the back of a squeaky
cafe chair, the usual, she drags
her mum to the counter,
towards the fiery face smiling
behind the till. Warm eyes,
sparkling with stories and life,
already talking to her mum about
her new school teacher
the new muffin recipe
her dad's latest gig.
Her face, bronzed by foreign heat
folds as she guffaws across the cafe,
careless, laughing , at a joke
the little girl doesn't yet
understand. Handfuls
of pink marshmallows,
sweet and pure, exchange hands
with a wink and a 'don't tell your mum'.
The girl sticks two together and calls them butterflies.
The broken clock near the door
shows the same time
as it did an hour ago, hands suspended, never-ending.

I carry flowers, an expensive bunch
of lilies and roses,
tilted in towards my chest - like
a child in a green paper blanket - to protect
them against the gale as
I carry sympathy home. The rain
soaks through the paper. I nip
off a dead leaf between my forefinger
and thumb, thoughts lingering,
nose turning numb. Four years
since I spoke to Mandy, at
'Mandy's Cafe!'
whisked away by time briskly slipping.
Moving house, growing up.
And yet, when
the sun comes out later today,
I see a little girl with scooter-hit
ankles, and glitter in her hair
reaching out a tiny ink-stained hand
for a warm buttered roll
from a hand memorised
through timeless hours.
May you rest in peace ❤
Elijah Hewson Feb 18
The thought of you lingers like steam after a shower;
But its different now, in my mind i neither cry nor cower.
Nor do i scream "IF ONLY I HAD MORE POWER",
For if i did your love would be nothing but coarse powder.
Now all i think is, i hope he buys you flowers,
I hope his love never flounders,
I hope he cares for you and in love you are showered,
I hope he always has the power,
I hope he never makes you cower...
And most of all i hope the thought of him never comes to haunt you in the shower.
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