Imprisoned in You

By Aditya Nandkumar Garde

There are nights when the world forgets to sleep, and I, despite all reason, find myself waiting.

Then, like moonlight upon still water, you arrive… quietly, without announcement, without permission.

In the delicate hush of slumber, you step into my dreams with the gentleness of a whispered promise. And somehow, somehow, my sleep no longer belongs to me.

You colour my dreams in silver, in warmth, in a stillness that even the stars envy. You stay long enough to turn my night into poetry, and leave just before the morning dares interrupt.

But when dawn arrives, when voices return and the world demands I wake, I find myself unable, unwilling, to part from that dream.

Your gaze, even imagined, holds me captive.

And so, each morning becomes a negotiation. I plead with sleep, as if it were a jailer, to grant me just a little more time in the cell of your memory.

I ask for a bail from reality, just to stay imprisoned in you.

By Aditya Nandkumar Garde