I Am The Same One Poem by Arvind Srivastava

I am the same one

who kept you
in deception.

I called your eyes an ocean,
your hair dark monsoon clouds,
wrapped you in metaphors
of moonlit nights, flowers, stars-
so that you would not see
the inadequacy
hidden in my own eyes.
I covered love with language,
and language
with beauty.
You believed my adjectives
to be truth,
and I kept fearing
your questions.
In truth,

I was afraid that
if you learned to recognize yourself
in ordinary words,
my necessity
would come to an end.

That is why
I kept you a poem,
and never let you
become a human being.
Now that
you call yourself
by your own name,
without any metaphor,

I finally understand-
the deception
was not done to you;

it was I
who deceived
my own love.

©Arvind Srivastava, India