Only Human.

All poetry ever does is tell me I’m incomplete,
All while I’m a whole person;
I don’t need you, nor you, me–
Life goes on and I’m breathing fine,
And yet here we are, left longing,
For each other, for love,
For inexplicable, unspeakable things.
What a fragile, human thing to want!
And yet that is what we are:
Only young.
Only finite.
Only human.

We fantasize uncertain forever-afters,
Willingly hand lives over to cunning Fate
Like the innocent fools we are,
Oblivious to the cruel world around.
We pledge entire lives over
At the shrine of this Love,
Vows are exchanged, heavy words too,
“‘Til death do us part, I take thee, I do,”
Never did it look so simple to me,
Perhaps I am only human,
And you, a figment of my reverie.

And should I give in
To the power you hold over my soul,
Forgive me, for it’s all I’ll know;
You’ve bewitched me so,
There’s no letting go, no coming back.
I’m only human, feeble, vulnerable,
Falling all in you,
Over and over again,
As humans do.

It’s only human to crave your embrace
When you’re a thousand miles away,
Only human to long for your voice
When the skies are dull and grey–
My love, I’m only human to want you,
If it were a crime, I’d fall from grace
And do it all over again too,
For I am only a human
In love with you.

~© Shubhangi Srinivasan.

Featured Image by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash