Love’s Residue
by Krish Panjwani
It is over now —we are strangers, unnamed.
I pick up the pen to sort through the remains,
to gather the fragments of our affection rearranged,
to piece together who I was before I changed
As we go our separate ways, does our love remain?
Is it etched only in my mind, without witness or domain?
Does it fade into forgetting like a grain of sand
On a beach, lost to a tide that knows not my name?
I heard it first in your silent eyes
Light receding, like winter skies
I felt it first in your cold fingertips
No love left when they caressed my lips
I read it first in the pause before “I love you”
As if the words forgot what they once knew
I saw it first in the space between our touch,
Only a few inches—but light-years too much
But I remember a time when I walked taller
When your light made my reflection kinder.
With you, my shadows lost their weight,
Fractured edges you taught me not to hate
Before that, the air asked nothing of me
It was new and effortless to breathe
Days unfolded, and I was happy just to be,
So unafraid, so untested, so endless in a sea
I still carry the leather you once gave me.
Not for you—
But for the boy who felt safe.
I still search for him.
Krish Panjwani is an emerging poet from Bangalore, India. He recently began writing poetry as a way to give voice to his deeper emotions, and it has become a meaningful creative outlet for him. This is the first time he is sharing his work with someone else, which it feels like a big step.