It Just Is

By Wahengbam Niraj Singh

I met you at a dawn I barely understood,

a maze of fleeting and clumsy dials.

hands frozen in the pause between,

proud in my messy numbers that might never fit.

Then you came, a sudden gust

that scattered my carefully built walls;

in every falling shard, I saw not destruction

but the blueprint of a self remade.

You sparked in the fog of my youth,

a flash of color in a dim, uncertain night.

I paused.

I have known admiration, infatuation, fleeting hunger;

but you, you are none of those.

I was both the burst of a firework,

and the silence after,

Chasing brightness,

learning the art of stillness.

Years passed, and in their quiet turning,

I stripped away the hunger and restless grasping,

letting desperation bleed away.

I let go—not of you, but of the illusion

that I ever could hold you,

and in that surrender, found something sharper, deeper, real.

I learned that love can be a gentle push

or the storm that clears old leaves;

it frees you to soar yet grounds you in quiet truth,

revealing paths hidden beneath the dust.

I learned to stand still, to listen,

to love you in the way the sky loves a bird;

without asking it to land,

without needing it to stay.

But make no mistake;

this is not me letting go.

This is not fear dressed up as silence.

This is me, standing here,

no riddles, no shadows, no half-truths

just this.

It’s always been you.

And if you ever ask me,

if you ever turn and wonder,

if you ever reach out a hand;

I'll be here.

Not waiting. Not hoping.

But knowing.

Because love like this doesn’t fade.

It doesn’t beg.

It just is.

By Wahengbam Niraj Singh