Devanshi Gupta

“He visits my town once a year.
He fills my mouth with kisses and nectar.
I spend all my money on him.
Who, girl, your man?
No, a mango.”
― Amir Khusrau, In the Bazaar of Love: The Selected Poetry of Amir Khusrau

“But mostly we’re forgetting we’re dead stars too, my mouth is full/ of dust and I wish to reclaim the rising—/ to lean in the spotlight of streetlight with you, toward/ what’s larger within us, toward how we were born./

Look, we are not unspectacular things,/ we’ve come this far, survived this much. What/ would happen if we decided to survive more?”
― Ada Limon, The Carrying

“Defining the Problem

I can't forgive you. Even if I could,
You wouldn't pardon me for seeing through you.
And yet I cannot cure myself of love
For what I thought you were before I knew you.”
― Wendy Cope, Serious Concerns

“When the plane went down in San Francisco,
I thought of my friend M. He’s obsessed with plane crashes.

He memorizes the wrecked metal details,
the clear cool skies cut by black scars of smoke.

Once, while driving, he told me about all the crashes:
The one in blue Kentucky, in yellow Iowa.

How people go on, and how people don’t.

It was almost a year before I learned
that his brother was a pilot.

I can’t help it,
I love the way men love.”
― Ada Limon, Bright Dead Things