Doorways

Tania Banerjee, India

Each time a heartbreak hits you, 

it is not always cloud bursts and downpour 

over the summit of a mountain row,

landslides racing down 

to collide with your skull

and break your bones at one go,

or the sudden volcanic lava syrup 

on boiling mountains of wrath 

erupting to burn your skin

and engulf everything on its path.

Sometimes, it is as subtle and eerie 

as the incessant noise of tiny fireflies 

in the nooks and crannies of the mountains

while the gentle night slowly dies, 

and often, it is the mountain range itself 

with its golden silence and haunting stillness,

yet so humongous and so very existent.

But for every heartbreak that you meet,

there is a child watching lilacs bloom

and the cluster of lights 

which on the distant hills glow, 

a child hugging his kindergarten love 

behind a rhododendron tree,

a child soaking in lukewarm water

with twinkling eyes full of glee.

Each time a heartbreak hits you, 

it does not always break you bit by bit.

Sometimes, it seeps into your body 

and turns into a giant shark,

taking sudden deeper dives 

for the gust of grief to arise and lurk,

or merely floating around 

like a lump in your gut, chest and throat

and finally swallows you whole

after biting, shaking, ripping you apart.

But for every heartbreak that you meet, 

there is petrichor lingering

in the wet earth beneath your bare feet,

the gentle nocturnal breeze 

brushing against your marshmallow skin,

there are misty dawns, cold rainy nights, 

love letters sent to wrong addresses, 

lazy afternoon naps, purple thunder lights,

there is the smell of old books 

with a yellow tint in their pages, 

white warm mattresses 

after sore and weary days, 

there are longer showers, sunset by brooks, 

and blue birds flying out of their cages.

And, there is love, so much love, 

known and unknown, old and new, 

overflowing, ethereal, tranquil and soft,

still left for you, and only for you.

Tania is an undergraduate student of English Literature from Kolkata, India. She is greatly drawn towards feminist and confessional poetry. She believes that art has the potential to change the world and she's on her mission, one day at a time, one poem at a time. She loves big books and all dogs in the world.