ren

“Take the मौका”
― Ren Storm

“he told me i was like a poem, all kinds of feelings bundled into one
but i am a song without melody, a screeching noise you don't want to hear
i am like an ointment but for the wrong wound; i can't heal you but i would burn
i am like that paragraph you delete before sending an okay
the last drop of coffee still stuck on your discarded cup
i am the rubber band on your wrist, i am lost as soon as you set me down
and like the moon on a moonless night
i am there but not in your world, not in your eyes, not in your heart.
i could have been your comfort shoe, but i broke your feet and you discarded me
so now I'm just an occupied space on your shelf you don't use anymore
I'm like the stain on the mirror when you're taking pictures; an irritation that stays
like the push and shove on the subway station that doesn't make you stop and stare
but the one that keeps you moving, completely unaware
i'm the stranger on the street that you see yet you don't
your eyes pass through me, not in focus, not in the zone
i'm not the art kind of beautiful, i'm the beauty that lies there, ignored
my existence is poetry, unnoticed, unaware, invisible to your eyes
and you just keep moving and i stay, i stay, i stay right there”
― Ren Storm

“थोड़ी सी खुश मैं हूं मैं, थोड़ा डर भी है
लम्होन से भरा सफर भी है
उलझन में हूं; जो देख रही हूं वो पहले देखा नहीं.
जो भी है, नया सा है; यह महसूस कभी किया नहीं
खुश तो हूं पर गम की हमें फिकर भी है”
― - ऋधि (Ridhi)

“one day, someone will look at me
and watch their whole life ignite behind their eyes.
their breath will stall in their throat, swallowing ache like a fallen star;
like lungs forgetting what to do with air.
their heart will stop for a fraction of a second,
and that fraction will stretch into a silence so vast it feels prehistoric;
wide and unbearable as an eternity.
and then it will race,
faster than thunder finding ground, faster than light trying to outrun itself.

their palms will turn cold,
fingers trembling without permission as if they’ve touched voltage,
their limbs will forget gravity,
and time will hesitate, pausing to witness it -
the exact moment they fall in love with me
and in that fracture of a second,
they will fall.

they will look at me and know,
not hope or guess but know
in the marrow of their bones and in their soul that ages ago,
that before the first atom split open,
before the sky learned how to hold blue,
before dinosaurs burned into fossils,
before language found a tongue,
before earth gathered dust into gravity,
and humanity mistook itself for something permanent,
we had already happened.

they will know that us, colliding with all our atoms and cosmos is no coincidence;
that we were inevitable, in all of the universes and in all our lifetimes;
not because fate whispered,
but in the quiet, cellular way that recognition works-
like something long separated clicking back into place.
like it's a promise, set across timelines, before the galaxy even knew it would come to exist

and when the universe tore itself apart in the big bang,
it was not chaos but a rehearsal
and they will feel it:
the red string pulled taut across galaxies,
threaded through our ribcages and wrists,
through lifetimes we do not remember
but ache for anyway.
and when they touch me,
the collision will be like magnets snapping together, hungry for just one touch
metal against metal, body against body, lips against lips.
sparks spelling something older than god.

in that very moment,
they will understand that this is not just love or mere affection;
that this isn't luck or coincidence but gravity recognizing its own law.
this is two particles separated by eternity
snapping back into alignment.
it is something that would have occurred
in any version of existence.
in every universe.
in every lifetime.
in every possible arrangement of matter.
a curse and a blessing braided together.
a life sentence that feels heavenly
even when it burns.

and even if none of it had happened—
if there had been no explosion,
no earth,
no evolution;
we still would have found a form,
like planets and their moons;
like a tree and its branches,
like the pulse and vein.

and when everything ends,
when stars cool and light forgets its purpose,
when the universe folds in on itself like a dying lung;
when galaxies extinguish like Birthday candles,
when time collapses and all of it ceases to exist,
we will remain.
not as bodies or memories; not as names engraved on tombstones;
all of it except us.
we will remain as inevitability
as the sentence written before time,
and still being served
long after time is gone.
just us,
still finding each other,
in whatever is left.”
― Mireille Mehr