Cartography Of The Heart

By Astha

The journey was terra incognita —

charted in the hemisphere of love.

There lay the continent of heart,

surrounded by the ocean of reality,

yet bound to the world by the isthmus of fantasy.

Mountains of duty rose solemn and steep,

their summits crowned with piety.

The great rivers of distance

were bridged by metros and your XUV.

The lake of difference

quietly reconciled through mutual respect.

The sea of prejudice

was surfed through the strait of intimacy,

and waves of ego

gently calmed by breathtaking poetry.

Art triumphed

over the arduous trek of day to day.

I moved without a compass,

guided only by stars to find my way.

The voyage began with acquaintance

and reached the country of familiarity.

By the train of thoughts,

I boarded a ticket to the city of “Let’s see.”

It became an endless drive through songs,

a thousand encounters in verse —

through roads of holding hands,

valleys of handwritten letters marked by kisses,

meadows echoing “suno na” at midnight,

and peaks of love-making.

Heartbeats cascaded

like waterfalls of passionate hugs,

glaciers melting into tranquility —

until the river of submission

met the suzerainty of the sea.

An oasis in the desert of ordinary,

By Astha