Love Out Loud: Poems by Crossword Poets Society

"Love out loud" is a powerful mantra that encourages us to express our love openly, honestly, and without reservation. It means sharing our affections, emotions, and commitments boldly and unapologetically. To love out loud is to break free from societal constraints, personal insecurities, and external pressures, embracing the freedom to love authentically.

 

In a world often governed by norms and expectations, loving out loud can be a revolutionary act. It challenges the status quo and creates a space where love, in all its forms, is celebrated rather than suppressed. This concept goes beyond just romantic relationships; it includes familial bonds, friendships, and even self-love. It's about showing the people in our lives that they matter, with words and actions that leave no room for doubt.

 

In celebration of all kinds of love, we held our Crossword Poets Society open mic on June 9 at Crossword, Krishna Curve, Mumbai, centered around the theme "Love Out Loud." Here are three special poems that became crowd favorites.

A Handful Of Words
by Udit Gor 

In the cacophony of sounds made in and by the universe, the sound of a heartbeat is the tiniest little curse.

For a sound that is so minuscule, so unbearably quiet, it takes a lot for it to suffer the wide world's riot.

She says, "No, it's the fault of the little fist in your chest that asks for thirty different lullabies for a thirty second rest."

And I crumble as she walks away, how do I even say that the lullabies I ask for are only a handful of words a day?

I want her to ask me, "how are you, how was your day?" Why won't she ask me if my train ride home was okay?

Is that too much to ask? Is my love so expensive? Is there any way to bring this up without her getting defensive?

All I wanted her to do was take an interest in my life,.....to think she was the one I wanted to bring home as a wife.

So my heart and its noises and the riots that it fights, her raindrops of neglect start to extinguish my fairy lights. 

Day by day, week by week, month by month I falter, how would this broken heart have had the strength to stand up at the altar

And say the words that I had practiced every night and every day? So I changed the script, changed the roles, rewrote the entire play.

The lady love, who stood above, in her dazzling purple dress, is nothing more now than another poisonous temptress.

The handful of words, the lullabies I wanted her to sing to me, now become the words she screams and the audience gets to see.

Gets to see the pack of lies that she would smilingly spread, that I was the one who left, I was the one who shot us dead.

But we knew the whole truth of her fingerprints on the gun, how she left through the backdoor, wait, when did she build that one?

How did the house of spouses become the house of lies, oh you should see the look on her face each time a part of me dies.

Her sadistic pleasure, knows no measures, knows no humanly bounds, how she wishes to silence all of my tiny heart's sounds. 

Being a choice is fine, as long as they keep choosing you, the day you become an option is the day they start losing you. 

So pack your bags, move out, let the house burn down, let theirs be the uneasy head which dons the cracked crown. 

Tyrannous leaders don't sing lullabies, they pass orders, all their lives, all they've known is setting up new borders. 

Set the poet in you free, for ages it has been seething, let it find someone for whom loving it is as easy as breathing.

Let the lullabies be sung, let the crowds have some fun, let there only be quills, no backdoors and no guns.

Let every beat of that fist in your chest be heard, let everyone understand that every beat is a word. 

A word in a phrase, a word in a poem, a word in a lost folk song. Until those handful of words stop being treated so wrong. 

Until you find someone who will look at you and mean it when they say, "How are you? How was your day? Was your train ride home okay?"

Pyaar Kiya Toh Darna Kya!
By Ashwini // @kitaabeinaurkindle