A Calendar of Unwritten Days

There is a quiet, shimmering tear in time, 

A fold between the now and what might be, 

Where I can glimpse the shadow of a prime 

Unfurling where the self was truly free. 

I see the two of us, precisely tuned, 

Not fractured, hurried, armored, or too young, 

But perfectly aligned beneath the moon 

Whose patient secrets we have learned and sung. 

It is the same strange spark, the knowing gaze, 

The gravity that pulled us from the start, 

But set within the framework of those days 

Where fear was healed and whole was every heart.

The truth we knew was tangled, sharp, and brief; 

We met beneath the sign of fractured things. 

Our words were muted by a private grief, 

Our souls were burdened by their broken wings. 

I was a house whose windows were all shut, 

You were a traveler who couldn't stay; 

The careful paths our weary spirits cut 

Led always parallel and miles away. 

The conversations vital to the bond 

Were choked by timing, left unsaid and deep, 

A harvest we were not prepared to fond— 

We met in slumber while the world should sleep.

And now the seasons turn, the scars are taught 

To settle flat and vanish in the skin. 

The solitary wisdom we have sought 

Has built the solid fortress from within. 

The work is done, the jagged edges smoothed, 

The lessons learned that only absence brings. 

We stand as two survivors, now behooved 

To recognize the gift of perfect springs. 

I know the man you are, the peace you hold, 

And you the woman, steady and made new; 

We are the wiser metals, proven gold, 

Finally ready for a love that’s true.

Imagine, then, the silence we would share, 

Not born of awkwardness, but deep release; 

The understanding floating in the air, 

The final, comfortable, and perfect peace. 

No frantic need to fix or to demand, 

No walls to climb before the day is through— 

Just two whole vessels, standing close at hand, 

Prepared for grace, and confident in you. 

This is the bright, ethereal echo found 

In spaces where the clock runs clean and true: 

The two of us, upon recovered ground, 

With nothing left to undo or pursue.

But this bright vision is a phantom thing, 

A ghost upon the mirror of the years. 

The rightness of the person cannot wring 

A drop of pity from the fate that steers. 

The self who was not ready set the pace; 

The calendar we lived is carved in stone. 

We hold the map to that forgotten space, 

But must, by cruel necessity, stand alone. 

It was the perfect person, standing by, 

Who merely chose the atmospheric wrong; 

We caught the sun beneath a weeping sky, 

And missed the hour where we might belong.

And so, we linger on the edge of grace, 

A masterpiece that perished at the sketch. 

A rightness saved by ending in this place— 

A beautiful, shared, permanent hypothet. 

The season closed before the bloom took hold, 

But in that closing, something is preserved: 

The knowledge of a love that could unfold, 

The finest promise we have yet observed. 

Right person, wrong dimension, wrong design— 

Forever hypothetical, and mine.

- Khushi Kaul