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Winter x Love Poems

Updated: Feb 2, 2022


Art by John Koch


Cold and Dark by Simran Tuteja


I shall wait for

The heat to abandon

The face of the Earth

For the cold breeze of

The winter to take over.

I shall wait for

The sun to set

For he only comes

Out in the dark.

His skin, embellished with

Diamonds against

The stars that do no

Justice to the blue-black

Sky of the chilly night.

Oh how eclectic

Would it be to hold

His hand, to entangle

Our fingers and never let go.

For his skin would

glisten against the

Pale brown complexion

Of mine, but oh how

Mesmerising would it

Be to hold him under

The stars for he is my

Midnight sun and I

Another servile dancing in

cold and dark.



a winter love knot by Katarzyna Stefanicka


i sink into your jumper

the more i resist

tangle and twist

the deeper i run

under


Winter Love-Song by Parth Lakhani

Ours was a winter love bed covers pulled to the chin tumbling in and out of sheets on mint rose mornings The white satined night seems like a white ghost We spoke as if we were writing on foggy window panes a warm breath would erase make of that what you will The city yawned and stretched its arms towards towards us we stepped into its embrace we sat on the throne of ice in the chamber of its heart sweet and cold as plums We willed time to run backwards deeper and deeper into December the dog days would thaw our hibernating bear it chose to sleep and not to die The days are getting longer now our hands may yet uncurl let us step as if onto a train an arctic express heading gentle into the good night Let us breathe no more Let us freeze this moment still


November Embers by Yashasvi Gaur


“November’s a burn

And an ache.”

- Charles Wright

The month unfolds,

slowly

With the crunch of leaves

and metallic tresses of lemongrass blowing in the air.

It's delightful to see

this entangled bond;

the nature

And the human

And their shared anxieties Each year

turning

the cold hotter

and humans distant.

Calendars run by

Time repeats itself.

Each year,

The same,

But different.

People leaving the earth

People coming to earth

A fair share of play

The month unfolds

And life grows shorter

Let me smell your musk

For one day

We would be

no more.


Layering Clothes by Sagarika Chaudhary


My indolence doesn’t let me let go


And so this third cup of tea doesn’t heal me

Because I don’t have the money to by a new shawl,

neither the courage to wear my old one.


My mother worries as I sniffle under the blankets

But it’s okay because December always tricks

and lulls you into slumber as if that will stop you

From being slaughtered for the sake of your art.


It’s so much easier to fake love

than it is to fake a lack of it.


The songs I have left over from when you loved me

Rattle in my head like a stuck vinyl

It’s better to lose my voice than absent mindedly

Hum your favourite one sitting in the college sun.


My hands are cold, untouched and unkissed

And laced with a laugh, I wonder if

I touched your heart because they’re like it now

Not dead, but I think, asleep.


Do you think of me every time someone

kisses you between sharing cigarettes?


I cough a little louder this time, thinking that

Maybe I shouldn’t have smoked on the

bus stop where we kissed for the first time,

Because I cried subsequently after.


Ma got tired of me being reckless

“You need to layer up in winter” she said and

Wrapped my old shawl around me

It still smells like you.


Tell me, does vehement sobbing aggravate your cold too,

or have you stopped sharing your music?


Winter by Alia Sinha

I'll wait till winter

To kiss you because the cold

Makes warm berries of our lips


You feel like a winter night by Vikas Tripathi


Your presence feels like

an early winter night,

ever so slightly cold and gentle,

soothing the restless senses,

the calmness dissolves in the air

and pleases the jaded mind,

everything else is left behind,

my jovial side comes through,

you are the kind of cold

I tend to warm up to.


After The Move by Kartika Menon

I see you on the screen

Wrapped in your blanket, your fan is off

While mine whirs on noisily,

Spinning as I sweat

It is December

My birthday is round the corner,

Lights are up for Christmas,

And a new year is almost here

But none of it feels really real

And I think it’s because there is no winter here

No winter, no

Tea-kettle-vapour-billowing, freezing toes-freezing nose Dogs-lying-on-patch-of-sunlight, Cats-curled-on-car-tyres School-uniform-with-stockings, sizzling-corn-on-the-cob winter

No, there’s none of that

There’s a bit of rain, a lot of sun - just business as usual So of course, December doesn’t feel like December.

Then again,

November did not feel like November.

Nor did October, or September, or really just - This whole year

Even in the most scorching heat,

summer didn’t feel like summer to me

And really, it's quite painfully obvious -

The main reason my life doesn’t feel true

Is not that this city doesn’t have winter

but that this city doesn’t have you.


Cold Distance by Saheen Rahman


Winter is here, and

Some 1800 miles away,

The evening lasts shorter;

You see the darkness

Before I do.

It is impossible to not think of you.

At night when I sleep,

My hands dangle from the edge of my bed;

I believe they are trying to hold you

In some alternate reality

Where you are not so much

Of an abstract idea.

I am irresistibly in love with you.

This hands, they are dangling,

Find them, before they set sail

To find you somewhere,

And return home, inconsolable and sad.



About the poets:


  • Simran Tuteja is a third-year UG student pursuing her Mathematics degree from the University of Delhi. She was the editor-in-chief of her college’s science society. She writes for The Teen Magazine, Unverbalise, and has a WordPress blog. Some of her poems have been published in poetry anthologies. You can find her on Instagram @simrantutejaa

  • Katarzyna Stefanicka is a psychologist with an interest in psychoanalysis and writing. Her poetry makes frequent use of short form and has appeared, among others, in Vita Brevis Press, Inklette and Rue Scribe. She lives and works in London.

  • Sagarika Chaudhary is a second year student at St. Stephen's College, Delhi, pursuing her bachelor's degree in English. She runs an Instagram page @sagar.ki.rika where she posts about books, music and photography.

  • Parth Lakhani (he/him) is a twenty year old poet, student and researcher (in that order). He likes bracket (clearly) and over-punctuates; he isn't entirely sure how to use a semi colon though. Parth runs a poetry organization called Qafiyah that organized open mics every month in Bangalore. If you want to find him, Parth frequently haunts the bookshelves of Blossoms Book House in Church Street, Bangalore. Grab his attention by reciting the first line of Ghalib couplet which he will undoubtedly complete. You can find him on Instagram @parthhlakhani and @qafiyahpoetry

  • Vikas Tripathi is a Pune based poet. When he doesn't have a pen in his hand he usually works on his laptop as a developer for a software company. A collection of poems written by Vikas is available on Amazon. You can follow him on Instagram @vikastripathi80

  • Alia Sinha is an illustrator, visual artist and theatre practitioner based in Delhi. She is deeply interested in collaborative art-making and obsessed with fungi, ghosts and bees. You can find her work on Instagram @minor_grace

  • Kartika is an aspiring historian, tea enthusiast, novice crocheter, and a poet (kind-of, sort-of). She usually writes about love and friendship, and is a firm believer in the magic of rhymes. You can read her published work here and here. For other sporadic attempts at writing, and many photos of flowers, head to @kartika.menon on Instagram.

  • Saheen wants her poetry to be a voice of rebellion, a sword for change, a lifeboat to save someone else from drowning. She often reiterates that art is her beginning and her end. She says, "Art is in everything, big and small, we only need the unavoidable and insatiable hunger to find it." Find her work on Instagram @saheenrahman_

  • Yashasvi is a research scholar at Jadavpur University, Kolkata. Although based in West Bengal currently, she yearns for a ‘home’ and a lost sense of belongingness. Literature and insanity keeps her sane while she remains deeply embossed in poetry, pain, and pleasure. She is among those people who linger for finding meaning in the little things. Writing is like breathing for her, which she explains 'sometimes come out in fragments, while sometimes like an incessant puddle of emotions after a long hefty morning run’. She writes about simple arenas of life and how it unfolds into myriad philosophies. Her writing contains a dialectic relationship between what we are and what we want to be. She has been a recipient of Rama Mehta Writing Grant 2021, and her works have been featured with publishers and journals like Half Baked Beans, Inverse from Kashmir, Narrow Road Journal, and Hakara.



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