Uncut Poetry

The Girl Who Could Lose Everything For Hope

Hope  is a strange beast. It is sometimes the only false note in our lives, and paradoxically - or because of that - is also the slender thread which keeps us alive to possibilities of life.
 
Little things take on meaning - little actions, little thoughts - nothing seems untoward or wasted.
 
Those who are too hopeful, are called foolish, sometimes foolish  optimists. But when something is a lifeline and gives meaning, how can that be bad.
 
Being foolish is a choice so many are willing to make simply because it gives an extra color to the dawn, removes the color of pain from an iridescent evening, gives something to look forward to in life when everything is gray and impenetrable and unreachable.
 
Hope is that dream which one can tangibly feel, like the bird which flies by but drops a broken feather in your hands - the bird might go away, but it does leave behind beauty, and something to hold onto....
 
Uncut Poetry is brought to you by Sunil Bhandari. 
 
Sunil Bhandari is a poet based out of India. His book of poetry 'Of Love and Other Abandonments' was an Amazon bestseller. His second book 'Of journeys & Other Ways to Get Lost' is just out. Both are available in Kindle on Amazon.
 
Sunil is on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
 
 
 

Love (then) Is Also Patience

There are two facts. One. Life is full of the unexpected. Two. It is long. These two facts are often forgotten when a couple mulls its differences.
 
One of the abiding tragedies of relationships is when couples don't give each other's differences the space and time they deserve.
 
But sharp edges find their corners smoothened with time; habits which were irritating become funny in nostalgia; wars become battles become skirmishes become peace summits with resolutions and amity.
 
Two people brought together, irrespective of whether they knew each other for years or not at all, will always start with finding their personal space being impinged upon time and again. Decisions which were individual now need discussion and mutual consent. The air in the room is shared. And it's not always comfortable. 
 
But one day, years later, on a day of deep depression, you suddenly receive the warmest embrace possible; in a happy moment alone, you find you are missing her. She becomes more than a habit. She becomes a part of your being. 
 
And that and that and that often takes time... 
 
Love then is also patience. 
 
Uncut Poetry is brought to you by Sunil Bhandari. 
Sunil Bhandari is a poet based out of India. His book of poetry 'Of Love and Other Abandonments' was an Amazon bestseller. His second book 'Of journeys & Other Ways to Get Lost' is just out. Both are available in Kindle on Amazon.
 
Sunil is on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
 
 
 
 

How She Knew (that he was unfaithful)

"Why do we cheat? And why do happy people cheat? And when we say "infidelity," what exactly do we mean? Is it a hookup, a love story, paid sex, a chat room, a massage with a happy ending? Why do we think that men cheat out of boredom and fear of intimacy, but women cheat out of loneliness and hunger for intimacy? And is an affair always the end of a relationship? 
 
"But as perpetrators have often said - it isn't always our partner that we are turning away from, but the person that we have ourselves become. And it isn't so much that we're looking for another person, as much as we are looking for another self. 
 
"As Marcel Proust said, it's our imagination that is responsible for love, not the other person."
 
The healing, the renewal, begins there.
 
The above commentary is an extract from Esther Perel's stunning TED talk. 
 
Uncut Poetry is brought to you by Sunil Bhandari. 
Sunil Bhandari is a poet based out of India. His book of poetry 'Of Love and Other Abandonments' was an Amazon bestseller. His second book 'Of journeys & Other Ways to Get Lost' is just out. Both are available in Kindle on Amazon.
 
 

In Which He Cries. And She Clears The Skies.

Coupledom is a nation by itself, with its own laws, thermodynamics and compulsions of chemistry.
At every moment of a couple's existence, the dynamics with each other swing and change - and if each of them are sensitive and aware, they give into the necessity to be the one who leads at one point and be the one who follows in the other.
And if one of them knows the address of scars and the other knows how to clear the skies, it's then a couple made in heaven....
Uncut Poetry is brought to you by Sunil Bhandari. 
Sunil Bhandari is a poet based out of India. His book of poetry 'Of Love and Other Abandonments' was an Amazon bestseller. His second book 'Of journeys & Other Ways to Get Lost' is just out. Both are available in Kindle on Amazon.

Perils of Breakup Sex (or Why I Can't Keep My Legs Closed for You)

Louise Gluck, the 2020 Nobel Prize winner, wrote a poem called 'The Encounter' -
 
You came to the side of the bed
and sat staring at me.
Then you kissed me-I felt
hot wax on my forehead.
I wanted it to leave a mark:
that’s how I knew I loved you.
Because I wanted to be burned, stamped,
to have something in the end...
 
My poem today follows the end which Louise Gluck talked about.

She's a Fierce One, My One

When we are loved and cared for, we should be ready to fight, being fought for or being fought with. 
 
Often, our definition of what is right and wrong has to be put away, and we have to battle for what's ours and what's right. 
 
And if we are injured, as the one for whom the battle took place, or because we were on the other side, we must then know that some battles which are fought with us are often the ones which would also save us. 
 
Uncut Poetry is brought to you by Sunil Bhandari. 
Sunil Bhandari is a poet based out of India. His book of poetry 'Of Love and Other Abandonments' was an Amazon bestseller. His second book 'Of journeys & Other Ways to Get Lost' is just out. Both are available for Kindle on Amazon.

I Should Have Loved More Wisely (They Say)

Happiness is found in extraordinary places.
The two who don't seem to ever match with each other, become the matchless couple. And The ones who tick every box, are the ones who find different paths and partners.
The alchemy of relationships is only a small-part nature and a large-part mystery.
But what is irrefutable to what lasts long - is the trouble each partner takes to figure out what hurts and what brings love. 
Uncut Poetry is brought to you by Sunil Bhandari. 
Sunil Bhandari is a poet based out of India. His book of poetry 'Of Love and Other Abandonments' was an Amazon bestseller. His second book 'Of journeys & Other Ways to Get Lost' is just out. Both are available for Kindle on Amazon.

That Gorgeous Evening When You Left

Relationships always have departures. Temporary, permanent, simple, or heart-breaking.
Inherent in such partings is the inevitability of our heart's decisions. Sometimes it hurts - but there is a good which lies just beyond the realm of hurt.
And in that realm, a person departs, but love doesn't. 
The gorgeous music in this episode is by Sayan Mukerji.
 
Uncut Poetry is brought to you by Sunil Bhandari. 
Sunil Bhandari is a poet based out of India. His book of poetry 'Of Love and Other Abandonments' was an Amazon bestseller. His second book 'Of journeys & Other Ways to Get Lost' is just out. Both are available for Kindle on Amazon.

I Surrender To That Feeling Again

Surrender is a strange word. It first and foremost denotes defeat. But couched in its shame are also intimations of survival, a love of life over demise, of abiding hope.
But, ironically, in love, surrender is the first prerequisite - it is love's entry point, the only way to live it's tumult, and survive it's caprice.

How Mothers are Nature's Return Gifts

The changing dynamic of relationship with our parents, in every age, actually defines who we are, & how we are changing.
 
Often we get to know them as the ones we cannot take for granted, very late in our lives. We learn that the only constant in the changing seasons of our moods and age, is their forbearance, their non-judgmental acceptance.
 
When the world outside & inside us is collapsing, they become our final and only refuge.