The Many Definitions of Love

Nonchalance,
that was the feeling before love.
Two people, egged on, to love

Tirelessly,
and she held on to those chattels
Bits and pieces of a fragmented life of

Stubbornness,
though she held closely:
And so she became an intransigent.

Silence,
but that was not her.
Not the scent of carefully combed hair, and

Insouciant
tresses of frowning black,
In the midst of those halcyon days of love—

Unmarred,
those were her hands:
Before his came, to hold.

Fallen,
into the strangeness of the moon.
A lovely fragrance,

A possession,
the warmth of love’s presence,
Grown unsettlingly cool:

A monsoon,
the boy she met in the midst of rain.
The august clouds above, amid their

Cupidity,
like a tumor, that is love:
Losing a man to an everyday struggle

with words.