Keep Kissing Me With Your Lips, Embracing Me With Your Arms And Crushing Me With Your Thighs Until I

We're all but traders trading days for the stars and nights for the sun.

Shayan Das

"Whose death are you more afraid of, my or yours?" the girl enquired and the boy replied, "Yours" whilst whispering somewhere deep within himself, "For darling, I'm the last person to die on Earth. After me none shall die".

Shayan Das

Life seems meaningful only after we suffer.

Shayan Das

Writing love poems without being loved is perhaps one of the toughest things I do as a poet.

I know she's my type of girl every time she tells me, "Don't love me for the beauty I have but for the beauty I create".

Shayan Das

Would you rather loose your ability to write or your ability to see?

And here comes one, an ineluctably lethal 'would you rather' question. Tbh, at one moment I thought of leaving this question to corrode in one corner of the mailbox but anyways here we go. Well, frankly speaking, it depends. But for time being, if there are no other options available I'd go for losing the ability to write (well, I guess it doesn't mean losing the ability to read as well) 'cause losing the ability to see 'fore turning even 20 would seemingly arrest the continuity and occurrence of some major things. For one moment I can stop appreciating beauty through my art but never in life through my senses.

Appears like asking someone if they would rather die or be dead. I dunno. Thanks for asking though!

Last night I saw a group of friends laughing at the café and ended up smiling myself. The other day, there was a couple kissing under the flicker of streetlight, and I thought to be gentler with me. For when you've been alone for more than half your life, you don't expect to be included or cast your own light; rather, choose to reflect like the moon that never formed a constellation. When you've been on your own, it seems that even the wind that brushes past your skin has a purpose— like a stray dog that thinks every kind hand that offers it food is home. You make two cups of chai every evening and pretend there's someone to converse with, or keep one earphone dangling, hoping someone would care to listen. You keep your cellphone silent not because you're agitated with the numberless messages, but because it hurts less not knowing there isn't one. You mistake your heartbeats for footsteps not because someone's arriving but because you think they must have.

Shayan Das, The Solivagant

I remember the day after writing the last exam of my grade 10th finals. I was convincing my father about my ardent interest in taking creative writing for further studies and heard him say, "The seas might look the best things to romanticise, so as long as you're hydrated, but in the fullness of time, you'll find 'tis the clouds, invariably not the seas, that can quench your thirst". And I realised beyond a shadow of a doubt how people are born romantics and made realists.

Shayan Das

"No, I won't eat," 5-year-old me would say and slam the door with vexation after being rebuked by his mother. "You eat alone," he'd cry in response to the persistent calls, knowing at the same time that mom wouldn't take a single bite, leaving him hungry. After an hour or two, mom would be back with the plate, feed him with her own hands, and home would be where it was supposed to be. The pollen grains, I learned, dare to fly, soar, and flutter in the wind only 'cause they know there will be flowers to catch them.

A bad day at school. 15-year-old me would bitterly answer a question from mom and regret the entire night for yelling at her for no reason at all. He'd sit beside her the next morning and greet her with a sorry. "I didn't mean to..." he would utter, and mom, cheerful as ever, would respond with a smile by that time. "You needn't," she'd say, and ask with uneasiness, "What happened at school yesterday?" "You could reply to me in that way," she'd add with assurance, "'cause you cannot with the world. 'Cause you trust I'm the only one who won't take it to heart". He'd already be in tears, embrace his mom tightly, and home would be where it was supposed to be. The love I sought for ages, I learned, is a mother.

Shayan Das, excerpt from 'The Love I Learned'

To be criticised demands far more talent than to criticise someone else.

Shayan Das