Maybe Sometimes We Love People Vehemently Not Because We Expect That Only They Out Of The 8 Billion Flesh

Are you really writing poetry since you were 11 ? The themes that you write with just have a wholly different and mature kind of vibe. To be frank, I just fell in love with your writing style at the very first glance. Now, if you're wondering, I'm not an adult like you, I'm just a 15 year old boy who is stuck in an environment where most people (most) don't have any appreciation for the beaty of the simple things in life and are too much focused on moving forward rather than taking some time to their selves. They have all forgotten that sometimes it's ok to sit idle and do nothing. Just gaze at the starry sky or the spring blossoms. So, I took to poetry to relieve myself and for the first time in 2 years I have known a marvellous person like you who wants to appreciate the little joys of life observe the personalities of other people from a different point of view. When I first read your posts I was dumbfounded, to be honest, and so I just want to congratulate you on your success in literature and romanticism and also for reminding me that there are other people like me. And lastly, love your work, keep going <3.

Gosh, this is everything! I can't thank you enough for writing this. Yes, I've been writing since I was 11 obsessed with Shelley/Keats and the entire Romantic movement, maybe not as fervently as now but yes those were some of the most promising times of my life, promising in the sense that there were little to no restrictions on my writing process be it academics or something else. I'm sorry that you're unable to find like-minded people around you entirely but then aren't we all on the same bus? But the best thing is that we needn't change people's perceptions. Everyone has their own ideologies and even existing in a time like ours with a realistic attitude (leave the romantic) is a matter of sheer audacity and courage. I remember the day after writing the last exam of my grade 10th finals. I was convincing my father about my ardent interest to take creative writing instead of medicine for further studies and heard him saying, "The seas might look the best things to romanticize so as long you're hydrated but in the fullness of time, you'll find 'tis the clouds invariably not seas which can quench your thirst". And I was convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt how people are born romantic and made realists.

** And lastly I'm not an adult as well making sagacious remarks on life & love. I'm 19 y/o and more or less in a similar situation as yours or maybe more tangled, striving every moment against worldly notions and seeking escapism through art. Thanks for asking and wish you a great day/evening/night ahead. <3

Last night I saw a group of friends laughing at the café and ended up smiling myself. The other day, there was a couple kissing under the flicker of streetlight, and I thought to be gentler with me. For when you've been alone for more than half your life, you don't expect to be included or cast your own light; rather, choose to reflect like the moon that never formed a constellation. When you've been on your own, it seems that even the wind that brushes past your skin has a purpose— like a stray dog that thinks every kind hand that offers it food is home. You make two cups of chai every evening and pretend there's someone to converse with, or keep one earphone dangling, hoping someone would care to listen. You keep your cellphone silent not because you're agitated with the numberless messages, but because it hurts less not knowing there isn't one. You mistake your heartbeats for footsteps not because someone's arriving but because you think they must have.

Shayan Das, The Solivagant

If Only (Poem) by Shayan Das

[Artworks/Images: In Bed: The Kiss, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1892) | Renoir (2012) | Romantic Lovers, Willem Haenraets]

Valentine's Month Poetry Recommendations 💌

1. Classical (rhymed & metered poetry)

Bright Star by John Keats

To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell

A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns

Love's Philosophy by Percy Bysshe Shelley

How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Browning

Amoretti LXXV by Edmund Spenser

When You Are Old by W.B. Yeats

I Loved You First by Christina Rossetti

I Am Not Yours by Sara Teasdale

To My Dear Husband by Anne Bradstreet

I Love You by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Air and Angels by John Donne

Love and Death by Lord Byron

Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal by Tennyson

2. Modernist/Contemporary (free & blank verses)

Love Sonnet XI by Pablo Naruda

Unending Love by Rabindranath Tagore

[i carry your heart with me] by e.e. cummings

Bird-Understander by Craig Arnold

Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath

For Keeps by Joy Harjo

Always For the First Time by Andre Breton

Love After Love by Derek Walcott

Any Lit by Harryette Mullen

To Be In Love by Gwendolyn Brooks

Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy

Desire by Alice Walker

Romantics by Lisel Mueller

Come, And Be My Baby by Maya Angelou

3. Written by Me (personal selection)

Amore Immortale by Shayan Das

Flawed Perfection by Shayan Das

I Love Thee Not by Shayan Das

A Song of Love by Shayan Das

If Only by Shayan Das

End of Eternity by Shayan Das

For My Valentine by Shayan Das

Love me, I'll write good poems. Break my heart, and I'll write better poetry.

The poetic urge to draw an analogy between every one thing with every other thing in the universe.

Shayan Das

I was a dream until one day I had my own dreams. My peers thought I'd outshine them; my parents expected my light would embellish them until one day it blemished me. 'Cause to shine is to build expectations and to build expectations is to be vulnerable. You ascend, albeit you know that the higher one goes, the more bones he breaks each time he falls. You trade your ambitions to build someone else's, snivel in silence and make endless excuses to defend each catastrophe until one day you find yourself becoming them, exhausted and devastated, on the verge of hitting mediocrity, and questioning why you couldn't be that anticipated one. All you wonder is if only you could stop that 7-year-old boy from striving those extra hours to top his class, rip apart the diary when he wrote his first story at 11, fasten those lips that whispered in praise of him, burn the books that told a 15-year-old boy that he can be almost anything in this world only if he aspires to. You pray only if you could dissolve into oblivion until one day you get to make a noise and yet remain unexplored.

Shayan Das

Flawed Perfection by Shayan Das

Quotes by Shayan Das. Follow my Instagram account for related posts.

Maybe I love her eyes more than anything else in the world 'cause they add testimony to my existence every time I look into them.

Shayan Das