Kitchen Window

I want to open my kitchen window while making us breakfast on a lazy Sunday morning,

I want to peek through the oven window and gawk hungrily at our food.

I want to fold laundered clothes while you lounge on the bed,

I want to watch you cut vegetables for tonight's rendezvous.

I want to struggle to make the bed with you,

I want to get mad at all the mess you make around the house.

I want you to help me arrange my books according to color scales,

I want you to clean your cupboard to make space for my blouse.

I want to sip tea and lean on your shoulder,

I want to fall asleep beside you, snuggled up and worn out.

I want to come back home to our open door and your open arms,

I want to close our kitchen window listening to the shrieks of the neighborhood kids dim out.

~Khyati

How to Love?

But you see

your love is loud.

It's yelled out concerns

and blunt expressions,

where mine is random notes

and covert gestures.

I like to jump into puddles

full of emotion,

while you drown my paper boat

in the vastness of your ocean.

You stumble in your haste

to be the first,

when I appreciate

the leisurely well-versed.

I am floored just by a few seconds of gazing,

yet you never shy away from hours of embracing.

You use your hands to profess,

as I string together words to confess.

I am startled by your loud footsteps

and rattling doors,

but you demand gestures

grand enough to adore.

We circle each other's orbits, oblivious.

Because love is different for both of us.

~Khyati

Us

We see each other.

Each one aware of the other's melancholy.

We observe.

Knowing the boisterously happy glimpses are few and far between.

We watch.

Carefully, from the sidelines.

Craving the support we are so reluctant to offer.

We whisper our misdeeds,

and yell our made-up happiness.

We can imagine when the other might be breaking

in silent rooms and dark places.

We hope

we aren't as far gone as the other.

We listen

to the unvoiced grief in between the letters.

We see each other

struggling and pretending to be in control.

And yet,

we only see each other.

~Khyati