The Reverse Love Poem by Ishaan Bhola

fine steel grey evening it was and we met again under the bridge. For
the last time. Eyes exchanged the last ‘ how-did-I –ever-fell-for-you’
strange mélange of pain and regret and hate and loss, flushed the
cup of my mind so tired. Love-the extension of one’s self-shatters
like the other childhood myths and castles of adolescent dreams.
And an engulfing silence scares and delights the unmoving thoughts
Of never to see each other again. And we never saw each other again.

And as the days melted and flowed making the aching feelings emerge
From the stone of present, being engraved by who seems to be a
Perplexing friend –the time. Then we had our argument so fierce
The one which fractures the ground, and the heart yearns for
Emancipation. The deluded soul comes out of the box of enchantment
and you begin to wonder whether you even knew her at all, all
this while? The amusing clouds of mystery have retreated and
what is left behind is a blank sense of a dull dragged existence,
and the patterns of arguments swirl incessantly in the living
room with small coffee table and hung portraits of art which still
seem to be wet with the paints of your brush. Hurling blames at
each other like arrows ruining what used to be careless cozy Sundays
and it hurts to be possessed by solitude which comes closing in
like the faded plastered walls of the apartment which is flushed
by the light of the gloomy orange hue coming in from the arched
windows and causes decay of the space, the memories and me
the tarnished pages of a table calendar fell in order like the
red leaves of a sugar maple tree. And we had our first kiss
for the first time and the hovering lights of the coffee shop
blurred for that infinitesimal moment and it soon descended
into a reassuring realm where we unraveled each other’s
bodies like an expansive mystic book which never fails to
astound the senses. It was soon followed with indolent walks
along the river piers and the faint exhuberance of doing
absolutely nothing.

Within the vague confines of shallow obscurity
The ego boundaries of my psyche collapsed almost
Immediately when I saw the flouresecent face of hers
Under the rusted iron bridge.