Those Who Do Not Remember History

To love,

(and be loved in return)?

Breathtaking happiness

Quiet contentment

A slice of heaven on earth.

A whispered word, a loving touch

Hot, sultry afternoons reading, limbs entangled
pages bookmarked by stolen kisses
Laughter and tears and aching goodbyes
Two parts of one whole.

Long letters plighting troth, sweet nothings
interspersed with banal talk of weather
separations endured 'until next time'
for one is loved; one is sure.

To love,

(knowing you are not loved)?

Heartwrenching misery

Dante's Purgatory and Inferno
all rolled into one living Hell.

'I miss you' 'I love you' 

sought no response

God knows 

any hope of reciprocity

was long renounced.

Yet to ignore

these feelings

like they do not exist

like emotions are untidy and need to be put away

like nothing matters...

For there was no warning

that the less you ask for

Indeed! the less you get.

What keeps 

this love burning white-hot 

that unending tears

do not douse them

nor the hurt armour a fragile heart

nor rational mind see

there is no hope 

but still

keeps hoping, hoping, hoping...

despite all odds?

"The heart has its reasons 

whereof Reason knows nothing."

What then, is left?

Trapped...

for those who do not remember history

are doomed to repeat it.

Innocence and Experience

Watcher and Watched

The one, mask firmly in place,

no emotions allowed.

The other, having known

the fury of the storm

there are no emotions left.

One watches from without 

as the other dies within.

But, tell me

Which the watcher

and which watched?

© Anuradha Warrier