Prof Nandini’s passionate poem, exclusive to Different Truths, delves into the complexities of heartbreak and emotional turmoil in a lover’s relationship.

“To love is to burn, to be on fire.” – Jane Austen

 
After the homily today, the much-needed discourse,
after the tête-à-tête after eons
I had those heart-in-the-mouth immersions.
I apostrophised you, my paramour,
and contemplatively recollected the vivid feelings
that we had before ages.
The heart brimmed, the eyes teemed, and the soul abounded.
When you said
thinking of me is ‘an accidental impulse’,
I, of course, didn’t take that fabrication.
You know, love, if you live to be a thousand-years-old,
I want to breathe a thousand-minus-one-day,
so that I never have to live run-down of your love.
I love you as certain clandestine things are to be loved.
surreptitious, between the sleuth and the soul.
Despite your I-don’t-love-you edifice, I know, I always know,
that you have been in love
increasingly, and then all at once, the way you fall numb.
There was a time when I thought that you were perfect,
and so, I loved you. Then I knew that you were imperfect
like me, and I loved you even more.
I love you for what I am, when I am with you,
not for what you have made of yourself,
but for what you have assembled of me.
I love you for the fragment of me that you fetch from time’s womb.
Love, thinking of you keeps me wakeful.
Fancying you keeps me benumbed.
Being with you keeps me thriving.
You are essential to me, like the heart needs a beat.
I love you and it is the commencement of the whole lot.
You make me wish to be a better person.
Love, now we know, love never dies a natural death.
It dies because we don’t know how to restock its foundation.
It dies of blindness, blunders, and perfidies.
It dies of ailment and lesions; it dies of inertia, of acerbic ruination.
But then, now I agree with Theodore Roethke,
“Love is not love until love’s vulnerable.”
Shall I call it the epilogue of love, or a new foundation?

Picture design by Anumita Roy

Prof. Nandini Sahu

Prof Nandini Sahu is the Vice Chancellor of Hindi University, West Bengal, and a celebrated Indian English poet and Amazon’s Best-selling Author. Formerly a Professor and Director at IGNOU, New Delhi, she is the author/editor of 23 books. A double Gold-Medalist, her accolades include a Gold Medal from the Vice President of India for English Studies, the Michael Madhusudan Academy Award-2024, and the Tagore Samman-2025. Her expertise spans Folklore, Hindu Studies, Comparative Literature, and Critical Theory.