Unfollowing You

by Komal Kapoor

  For all the badasses reluctant to show their soft side—you are not alone.

  There is this myth that showing emotions is a sign of weakness, a myth I believed for many years. This book is my way back to my feelings. To be comfortable with them, around them, in them. May it help you embrace yours as well.

  And to anyone who struggles to talk about love and heartbreak, I hope you find the power in your vulnerability. It is okay to feel something; there is even strength in it.

  Is this how you remember our story too?

  No swiping

  No height lies

  No tiger pics

  No bio quips

  Our encounter was

  the stuff of urban myths:

  an In Real Life sitch.

  We met under the desert sky,

  strangers among friends

  your gaze rested on me

  too long for it to be a friendly hi

  the sky turned crimson

  reading your lingering thoughts

  the sun slipped away, so sly

  knowing the night is when

  lovers unite

  stars giggled down

  whispering about our fates

  finally aligned

  I sat, staring up

  and you, you only stared

  at me that night.

  No wait-three-days rule afoot

  You call, not text

  and I think finally

  I’ve found myself

  a modern romantic,

  someone I could even

  make mine.

  .

  .

  .

  Or, are you just a friend?

  Most people are imitations

  of their idols

  of favorite characters—

  forever editing their lives

  to fit an ideal.

  Not you:

  you are your own being

  unaltered, untainted.

  You notice things

  about me

  I did not think

  were worth noting.

  We hang like friends

  and kiss like lovers

  I want to know:

  what are we?

  On a trip away,

  your phone battery died.

  You added me on Facebook

  to make sure I knew why

  you hadn’t replied.

  I wonder maybe,

  we have something here,

  you and I.

  You say my name

  and I finally know

  what it means

  to come undone.

  I am no good at jokes:

  despite off-delivery, and

  references too vague,

  you laugh every time

  looking into my eyes

  making me feel seen

  for the first time in my life.

  You are

  my favorite

  notification.

  You have turned me into a cliché:

  I check if you’re online

  a dozen times a day

  lol at your Snaps

  {you’d be such an entertaining date}

  and wonder if you tweet about me

  or is there some other pizza-loving bae?

  Fear and courage, love and lust

  feel the same.

  Tingling, heart clenching

  how to tell, which is what?

  I hope

  you never

  think of

  someone else

  while you

  kiss me.

  Lay down your armor

  I’ve cast mine aside

  out of these confines

  I feel larger, stronger

  won’t you join me

  in this vulnerability?

  Let us be true to ourselves

  and get to know

  each other tonight.

  The closer

  you try to get

  the harder

  I’ll push you away.

  I don’t want you to go,

  you say.

  I feel my doubts

  melt away.

  You want to make me breakfast?

  you ask.

  My sincerity puzzles you

  and it unquiets my heart to know

  you have never been loved before.

  We love inexpertly

  in whispers and gushes

  fragments and bursts

  never sure

  how much to give

  never sure

  how to take.

  You created us

  a Netflix profile

  naming it our own

  version of Brangelina.

  You have a quality about you

  a gravity,

  your eyes dare me to look away

  knowing I won’t, I can’t

  because when you look at me

  nothing else exists.

  Thought fragments

  flash images

  and a sudden rush

  thundering

  in my chest

  as the air turns heavy

  like impending rain.

  The feeling of you

  l i n g e r s

  leaving me electrified

  for days.

  I felt your absence

  before I met you

  as one misses stars

  in a dark night sky—

  knowing they are there,

  wishing they’d appear.

  Saturday night dates

  are easy to find

  but I want only you

  on Sunday mornings.

  Weave your fingers with mine

  let me rest my head on your chest

  stroke my hair and tell me

  all your dreams and fears;

  let me see your darkness

  and I’ll show you mine.

  We haven’t known each other for long

  it is probably too early to say

  I love you

  {but what is love, if not this?}

  I tell you I want to know you more,

  when I really mean

  I no longer want a life

  without you in it.

  But that would probably scare you.

  Instead I ask

  where you grew up, ask

  about your siblings,

  we talk about how much

  you miss your mother.

  I want to tell you I love you

  but maybe it’s not the time.

  I hope when you look in my eyes,

  the way only you know how to,

  you see my soul pouring out.

  In all my things said, unsaid,

  what I really mean to say is

  don’t ever go.

  It’s rather risqué, isn’t it;

  how deeply embedded

  you are in my thoughts.

  The days have grown

  too long

  as I wait to see you

  and the nights, well

  I have never met shorter nights.

  The moon must be on strike

  or maybe

  no amount of time is enough

/>   when I am with you.

  Love is relativity and time travel

  distortion and dilation

  it is when the 1440 minutes in a day

  are not all the same length

  most are useless

  but the few spent with you

  are tiny infinities.

  In a world

  that no longer pauses

  to listen to the whispers of a soul

  you found songs

  I didn’t know I held within me.

  In a starless night, your smile is the moon

  as I look within your eyes of purple hue

  I see universes of us, in dimensions anew

  it seems against the laws of nature

  to have a mortal as impeccable as you

  we search and search,

  to explain body and soul

  yet I found you, an irrational whole.

  Are you real or a fevered dream;

  will you disappear, as I catch my bravery?

  Is reality better

  or the digital us?

  Are you better

  or the idea of you?

  The thing about love is,

  it cannot be ignored.

  I can pretend it is

  anger, resentment,

  jealousy, fear.

  I can call it

  by different names

  but it is here,

  as undeniable as the soft pulsing

  of blood through my veins.

  I feel like someone else

  when I am with you

  a better someone

  a softer me.

  As I sit beside you,

  coffee warming my hands

  your words heating my heart,

  my walls disintegrate.

  I think I may be

  falling in love

  with you.

  My laughter

  tastes different with you;

  it pours out like a high waterfall

  crashing strong,

  words land heavy

  between gasps;

  it is not an elegant laugh

  but I don’t care.

  You like me messy

  so I allow myself to spill over;

  these unfiltered moments

  are how I measure our love.

  Growing up,

  love felt like a superstition

  a fantasy I should not

  indulge in.

  Then you came along

  providing me faith in something

  I had given up on.

  If they ask me, What is love?,

  all I can say is, you.

  For when we met,

  it finally made sense

  what others meant

  when they spoke of love.

  My love is

  not a blooming flower

  for that shall die too soon

  nor is it an ocean fickle

  with its affair with the moon

  it is not a deeply rooted tree

  for they can lie decaying too.

  This love of mine is like matter

  abundant, ever-present

  the kind that cannot be

  created nor destroyed

  and as this love shifts

  its energy to you

  treat it gently for

  it is pure,

  it is true.

  I strive every day

  to see you as you are,

  not as you should be.

  In the hours of deepened dusk,

  you reek of loneliness

  and the burdens of this flesh

  as twilight lengthens endlessly

  it feels tomorrow may never arrive

  there is an urgency in your melancholy

  for if death were to visit, it would surely be tonight

  alone in these late-night hours when time stands still

  your cries of love come tumbling out,

  you feel alive at last, flesh on flesh triumphs all.

  But what love is that which is born in despair?

  Instead, love me in the morning light,

  with a fresh promise and hope ahead

  when all seems possible, senses erect

  in the glory of a new day, love me right.

  You are

  heartbreaking

  and breathtaking

  in the sorrows you fight.

  I see your faults;

  but for the first time

  they are not an excuse

  to run away.

  As you trace figures on my back

  I close my eyes and

  forget the stresses that gnaw at me

  our silence is lavish

  glimmering with understanding

  you know every etch on my soul.

  For the first time, maybe ever,

  the storm in my chest softens to a hum

  words racing through my brain

  turn into wisps of air

  as our heartbeats slowly sync,

  you settle my turmoil.

  You are my

  I-wake-up-and-think-of-you

  love.

  In spaces between breaths

  ends of unfinished sentences

  stopped at red lights

  cruising through greens

  loading new Netflix episodes

  stirring honey in tea

  gazing into eyes

  reminiscent of your blues

  you steal moments away from me;

  I am yours in ways

  you do not know

  and I give you everything,

  willingly.

  You will always be safe with me,

  you say.

  Every night we untie

  the knots of situations

  put salve on cuts from the day—

  no nick too small,

  no wound too hideous.

  Every morning we prepare

  for our circumstances—

  with you, I do so with hope.

  Some days,

  I just cannot face the world alone.

  Love me like the ocean loves the shore

  sometimes hard, sometimes gentle

  retreating a bit to let her breathe

  but never too far, never for long.

  It was not until I met you

  that I understood

  I had never been in love before.

  My love might be

  hard to hear

  but I promise

  it is here.

  How exquisite it is

  to have someone want to chase

  every thought

  meander around each memory lane

  and make a home in my brain.

  I want to be your favorite book

  the one you read over and over again

  take me off the shelf, wear me out

  {don’t worry, I have a strong spine}

  understand my heartbreaks

  stain me with your tears

  dog-ear your favorite bits

  take notes, memorize details

  read between my lines

  find new meaning every time

  make me your favorite book,

  because you are mine.

  Do you feel it too?

  We have such a connection,

  you say.

  Yes, it scares me

  how similar we are,

  I reply.

  We wer
e sipping tea, watching rain fall

  when you whispered above the storm,

  Aristotle believed the sound of thunder

  was the clash of two clouds.

  That may have been when

  I fell in love with you.

  Or maybe it was our sunrise walks

  turning this night owl chipper at dawn.

  People say, Don’t let someone change you,

  but how can we not change

  with every encounter

  every relationship

  every love?

  We take a bit of someone

  give a bit of us away.

  I have changed since your love

  and I like

  who I have become.

  In the clouds

  and tea leaves,

  the ink blots

  and tarot cards

  all I ever see is

  you and me.

  Love me

  like the world loves

  Beyoncé.

  In a world so determined

  to sort us in boxes—

  are you happy or sad

  a morning person or night

  woke warrior or shy

  brown or white?

  In a world that forgets

  how ridiculous it is for a being

  to be just one thing

  when we are stardust and earth,

  ashes and flowers

  all mangled together.

  In a world that demands

  I piece myself apart

  to claim one identity or another,

  I only find myself whole, here

  with you, I can be everything,

  I can be me.

  I want a house filled with

  paintings, books, sunflower dust,

  and whispers from you.

  Perhaps we should discuss love

  but that is a topic for volumes

  and I probably don’t have

  enough phone battery.

  With you, the commitments of love

  no longer seem burdensome.

  I do not understand you

  but that does not worry me;

  I barely understand myself.