Your work kept you far from home for so long
I learned to answer doors, fears, fevers,
and silence by myself.
I buried my youth
inside lunchboxes, waiting rooms,
and children who needed two parents
but found only me.
And now,
when my hands finally reach for yours,
you speak to me
like I am something unbearable to see,
something violent enough to kill.
After a lifetime of carrying us both,
I did not expect love,
only kindness.
But you looked at the woman
who spent her whole life protecting your world,
and spoke to her
as if she were the ruin in it.
Some wounds do not bleed red.
They turn the soul septic quietly,
until even love begins to smell of death.
©?Chitra Arun
She didn’t know how to speak
at first.
There were eyes,
tired eyes,
no words.
Then words came.
Daughter,
friend,
lover,
wife,
mother.
A little conversation
for every role.
Each role
asked for more
than it gave.
She kept speaking,
trying to stay present,
slowly leaving herself behind.
Then,
somewhere,
the words fell short.
Same people, still.
Same bonds, somehow.
Broken sentences.
She isn’t silent now.
Just distant.
The one who once
walked out of silence
now returns
to it.
Where did her conversations go?
Or maybe,
she simply stopped
answering questions
no one
was truly
waiting
to hear.
©Chitra Arun
Forenote: In India, over 80 rapes are reported daily.
This poem is what that number feels like.
It wasn’t merely news.
It caught my breath
in a sudden, silent cage.
Someone else’s daughter,
once again,
became my own.
Fear became my habit,
something I grew up wearing,
and never learned to take off.
The wounds inside me
still breathe,
like hidden demons.
Like glass I shattered,
Scars making me believe
in fragility.
I am a mother now;
My heart lives outside my chest,
And fear is the shadow it casts.
Mother that I am,
My chest now holds two beating hearts.
With every screams,
Killing me half.
Every day
another girl.
Today,
the heart
bleeds again.
© Chitra Arun
She,
with an ocean resting in her eyes,
not blue,
only deep.
Her smile says
everything is fine.
As if contentment
were no longer a feeling,
but a face.
But does peace
really mean only silence?
People prefer to believe
that calm itself is happiness,
that peace arrives without a past.
Still,
I will not ask her.
The bindi on her forehead,
like the center of a void,
from where
everything begins
and also ends.
Whether a storm lives inside her or not,
it is not necessary
to know.
Some truths do not need language.
She is the bearer,
and I am merely the onlooker.
Some forms of beauty
do not ask to be questioned,
only to be met with silence.
And the void
is not empty every time.
Sometimes,
it holds everything
within itself.
©?Chitra Arun
You came like a whisper in the dark,
Like a spring in a withered land,
Touching my life like a sacred fire,
Lifting those ashes of lost desire.
In your eyes, I found my peace,
A fleeting storm that gave me ease,
In your gaze I saw a new sky,
In your voice, my silence died.
Each smile of yours I kept like gold,
Each promise carved into my soul.
Now you walk like a stranger,
No trace, no reason left behind.
I built my world around your smile,
Believing you’d stay just for a while.
©?Chitra Arun
Some intimacies are quite unique,
where two hearts mature together,
enmeshed in a web of love.
Guiding each other
with the light in the eyes.
Hope, in the dreams becoming one,
guess, that’s what makes separation harrowing.
Pain is caused not because of two hearts separating,
but one being ripped apart.
Yet, there lies magic in those memories.
They can bring two hearts
yet closer spanning the miles in seconds.
©Chitra Arun
In the bustling halls of workplace,
there lies a quiet enmity hidden in plain sight.
A simmering rivalry that runs deep,
whispers behind closed doors and furtive glances that never meet.
On the surface, all seem polite and cordial,
but beneath the shining sheet of professionalism
lies a devious inferno.
The backbiting, the petty squabbles,
all serve to undermine a collective goal.
We pretend that all are in this together,
but the fact is far more guileful, much harder to bear.
For as long as this hidden enmity persists,
we can never truly reach our full potential or even hope to coexist.
©Chitra Arun
Heart burning in silence,
Devoid of smoke and ash,
yet I still ignite within.
Soul lit; but leaving no mark,
wounds still glare in the night!
©Chitra Arun
Stay, don’t go,
Not yet, let the night, stand still,
The heart still beats against its will.
A fleeting smile, a silent gaze,
Is all I need to set me ablaze.
Just walk on, smile once more,
And I’ll ask for nothing more.
©Chitra Arun
I wish to touch you,
Feel you with my eyes.
The warmth in your gaze alone is enough,
To light up a silence
That only I hear.
Your smile hides in my peace
Yet silence scare,
Fingers freeze on unanswered notes.
Now I’ve grown used to it
I still find you
In the spaces between the words.
And my heart whispers,
Let me just see you
Let me just hold you
Tightly
Quietly
In my arms,
Just long enough to remember
How it feels to belong!
©Chitra Arun
The day of birth decides the date of death.
In the theatre of life that unlatched,
happiness and heartaches alike
what count to be taken,
to be scripted down on my own?
Knew this all,
spoke it all,
but the ambrosial journey that started,
now being pervaded by languor.
due to Gaslit Soul!
A journey of thousand miles
one step made it curtailed
now locked in the scarred walls
Of a Gaslit Soul!
©Chitra Arun
The war drums roared,
the combat declared.
The roar of India’s lions
now enemy’s nightmare.
It is not about borders,
but our nation’s pride.
Son of the soil fierce and wide,
forges ahead with pride,
with the flag in their heart and the nation as their guide.
They came here with unholy blood,
We would answer with thunder,
each shot a promise, no mercy, no pause.
The eyes dared to look at my Mother
shall regret the day.
Our silence is broken- hear Jai Hind thunder wide.
Each heart a battlefield, each breath a reply.
©Chitra Arun
Friendship, for me is not a deal,
started by you and I followed,
I stood right there whenever you needed,
Making a quiet space for your rage,
sorrow and your care.
You never had to ask, as I always knew.
Even in the silence of the nights, I was there for you.
I broke myself again and again,
never planned to walk away in pain.
I turned each thread into something real,
you laughed it out as if there was nothing to feel.
Don’t come now with that, “you were my friend”
As that soul is no longer mine.
©Chitra Arun
A quiet evening where memories stood still,
A silent turn, till we meet again,
You the one who has forgotten me
And me, the one still hasn’t.
To me, time stood still,
And in yours, only a trace of regret.
Two hearts aflame, but not ready yet.
Like rain that rose, then stalled its fall.
You didn’t smile,
I could not speak,
But in the silence
everything was said.
We did not cry,
did not embrace,
just passed through each other’s hearts
like echoes fading in a storm.
©Chitra Arun
Heart, like a river is
taught only to give at every turn.
Even when crushed by rocks,
It quietly carves the way forward.
Flowing endlessly,
quenching every thirst,
bringing life to dry, forgotten lands.
But has anyone ever asked,
how many times she was shattered and
how often is she torn within?
Some appear only in need,
and still, she opens her arms
like nothing ever went wrong.
No one sees the pain beneath her surface,
the bruises, the thorns, the worn-out banks.
They come to her for peace,
but no one hears her silent cry.
©Chitra Arun
Sub Categories
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.