Uncut Poetry

Darling, make no mistake.   There's so much of you I crave and care for. My morning gratitude wishes are of you, whatever nightmare you might have put me through a sweaty night.   I've learnt the hard way that married life is less a game of naughts and crosses, and more of remembrances and erasures. Because the burden of memory in a marriage is Krishna's Butterball rock in Mahabalipura, balancing on a point.   But, gosh, how much you can cry. Tears are your inbuilt bazookas. And your hysteria is no match to the desperation in my rising voice. And we find reason jettisoned, and notion & conjecture reigning. We become our speculation of each other. We make each other the worst versions of ourselves.   You want primacy - to both have the headlights shine on you - and be the headlamp. And I acknowledge it - the moment you see the softness in my eyes and I slip my hand in yours, it's me feeling gushy inside. You have my heart, my fealty, my side, my air, my breath. And then you start off on what's wrong. The fantasy of what's wrong. The perception, the illusion. And I am gobsmacked. What is the genesis of it all? Here we were, happy, sentimental, beautiful together. And then - bam! - the genefluction.   What is the genesis of this reverse alchemy? Golden evenings descend into ironic discussions on you not being acknowledged enough; stellar afternoons drift into brassy discussions of how I fall short on your parameters: you clearly remember everything I've done wrong, not the effort I've put in to be the imperfect but hardworking lover.   And then I ask - why are we together? What are we doing with each other if we can't be wild roses in our most intimate moments, when I have to hold back afraid of what you'd think, when our conversation is of need and not comfort. When you don't believe me, and I can't ever know why you don't.   When all that we are and all that we need, alas, are different things, where, pray tell me, where is our meeting point? Where do we go, my love, where do we go from here?   If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the frustrations of love -  I Should Have Loved More Wisely (they say) Love's Night of the Long Knives Distances (Kaifi Azmi ke liye) Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts' Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on [email protected]   The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Bells of the Burguoise by Tim Kulig Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/bells-of-the-burguoise Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Summer makes me light and present. The monsoon pulls me into its flood of feelings. Autumn turns me inward—part stranger, part seeker.   But winter is where I truly awaken. In its drifting mists and sudden shafts of light, old emotions unseal themselves; warmth rises gently from the cold. My mind clears, my questions deepen, and I feel myself walking through unseen passages within.   I’m reminded that we are rarely as flawed as we imagine, our circumstances rarely as dire as our stories insist. The world is as complex or as ordinary as we choose to make it. Life’s puzzles soften when we stay still enough to let them simply pass through.   Perhaps that is why winter feels philosophical: it offers haze and clarity, cold and warmth, the riddle and its meaning. It asks for no quick truths—yet reveals them when I step back into the open.   Winter is what you make of it: always misty, always beautiful, always ready to lift its veils for you   If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the the way seasons change -  Those Days of a Lost Summer The Passing of Autumn The Slant of the Winter Sun Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts' Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on [email protected]   The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Village Ambience by Alexander Nakarada Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/village-ambience Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

We are such fools, we are, knowing all about inevitabilities, but never (ever) prepared for them. We will lose loved ones, they will die, some in their prime, some before they would have discovered their worth, some even as they burned themselves on both ends.   Such is the life of denial we live. Refusing to acknowledge what we know as truth in the deepest fibre of our beings. And when the end does come, as of course it will, we are emotionally, spiritually, illogically, found wanting, found unprepared, found broken.   We refuse to acknowledge the known, and the known's blow lands on us like a bludgeon. And we are broken into smithereens.   When, if we had faced unto the reality of situations, we would have moulded our time, our priorities in elegant and deep engagements, which would have brought in a final grace in the ones we love to bits.   Because often, only too often, we have to let go - of those we love, of those we hold on too tightly to - because in that release, we are also freeing ourselves from the burden of living on, of being the one alive, of the guilt of destiny, of the luck of having some more breaths left.   The action of letting go is often the very action which gives us permission to live on.   If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the ways death finds us -  What Do I Leave Behind? An Epitaph of Light & Air  Chemo: As I Battle Myself Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts' Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on [email protected]   The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Clean Soul by Kevin Macleod Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/clean-soul Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Love is as you define it. Often a search. Often a precipice. Often an infraction. Often an acceptance. More often then not, a home we finally settle in, a comfort, a place to step out from the edginess of search to build stories of reconciliations.   But life has its outtakes and inputs, twists and twirls, bells and whistles, which do not allow love to rest. Because it does not want one basic thing to be forgotten. That love is an effort. Love is a daily ritual. You fall in love again and again with the same person.   Beyond the words, lies the question of why it matters. Because even when undefined or unsaid, love comes in our lives in whisper-soft ways - in thought, in touch, in secret care. Because the universe adores us. And spreads its munificence everywhere. No one can say she is unloved. She needs to only look out of the window and see an evening sky or feel a summer breeze.   Everything beautiful which loves us doesn't always come with announcements.   If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on how whisper-soft is love -  Lovers in the Morning Coffee, You & Me The Importance of Faith in Love Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts' Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on [email protected]   The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Parting of the Ways Part 2 by Kevin Macleod Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/parting-of-the-ways-part-2 Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Everyone comes in our lives for a reason. The bad ones, the good ones. It is all revealed in time. Sometimes as a slow-burning mystery, sometimes as a spark in a deep night, sometimes in quiet secret ways even we fail to understand, until we get to look back and retrospect.   So many of our relationships tether on the edge, so many drift to seeming nothingness, so many are treacherous like the Annapurna slope, so many solid as resolve.   But the true charm of being with someone is the continuous mystery of what emerges, of discoveries and rediscoveries.   What sparkles could well burn out, what is secret might not stand the burden of revelation, what seems solid could be merely hollow shell.   That's the way bonds go, that's the direction love takes. It revels, it celebrates, it lets time and life determine the direction. Sometimes it leaves us mid-highway, sometimes it helps us navigate through cul de sacs, often it is our companion in long-distance runs, sometimes it goes for a sprint with us, and quickly falls by the wayside.   We keep searching for a shore in our relationships, forgetting that we should also be one for those who love us. To be a traveller is beautiful, but to finally rest is also not only a need but a necessity - for ourselves and for those who have covered a distance with us.   If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the gentleness of love's ways -  I Love You I Can Be Your Poem A City Made of Our Sighs Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts' Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on [email protected]   The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Elysium by Alexander Nakarada Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/elysium Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license