To love or not to love?
In life’s holy burlesque to dance and jive,
Skating in the air and stirrups high.
The heart’s offer of wishful thinking
A reluctant romantic in belief and belonging.
The façade of past left to wither and die;
Love auctioned in sardonic camaraderie menacing alive.
Hereby trying to feel love forgetting to sin,
And churning hard deep down to quietly imagine.
Tangible and transparent it was to get the best bidding price,
So eerily precise of old narratives — a taste of false paradise.
Living in constant regret like none
Below in virtue did love and hate spun.
Rusa Bhowmik is a researcher by profession and resides in India. Her first anthology, Rookie’s Poetry comprises poems written during her teenage years.