Paper Heart

By Akshat Kapoor

The heart demands fulfilment in love

Presented as a piece of paper, ruled

Demanding to be filled in, made richer

By pen strokes of a soul not known.

It invites desecration

Expects veneration

Yet for a select few

such anticipation yields

none.

For there exists an aberration

where the empty paper

receives vacuity;

nevermore any contours

of sentiment.

Call it fate or fortune, ill;

it seems as though gone

are any vestiges 

of one’s own emotions

one’s own self, right along

the inanity of inaction.

In the midst of anguish

a palpable presence remains

signalling none is lost

only retained.

Bethink the paper

still striated

obliques that hug the edges,

cohering.

Without slack

each slash

holds an expanse of emotion

untapped, unwritten.

Bethink why these lines

are bent upon

holding true 

to what they first present.

For if there lacks input

the heart coerces itself

into a way out.

The weight it holds

is its own, after all

No expectation may lessen

no scepticism may weaken.

Abstinence of another

does not deem

desolation 

of oneself.

The heart, thus

can never collapse,

never not brave

the downpour of despair.

For love may be filled in

with its own strings

as gentle quills

nibbling along the empty lines.

Any work henceforth

that arises from the heart

will be one 

of compelling catharsis

Purgation

Of the pessimistic;

Propagation

Of the pensive.

By Akshat Kapoor