if you have ever
been an outsider at school, thought that college was cruel, isolated yourself to keep trouble
at bay, depended on a bottle of Old Monk to wash loneliness away, read Maya Angelou
and still ended at the therapist’s twice a week, lived from weekend to weekend till the year
was out of reach, made out with strangers at the beach, queued up at 9 am for a beer, had
losing as your biggest fear, gotten into a barfight with a guy who left you mid-dance, lived
on canned ramen and the idea of romance, not managed to get out of bed, cried in the
bathroom, in an auto, in trains and cabs, been caught at work while tackling anxiety
attacks, over-planned long weekends into solo trips, found companionship only in books,
relied on plants and pets for what parents couldn’t, been tired of playing the devil’s
advocate, been caught between forgetting and forgiving, been depending on karma being a
bitch

know that love is
on its way.
one day, it will be okay.

Aditi Bhattacharjee is a sales specialist by profession and a poet by passion. When not in her day job she spends her days humoring her brain chatter and reading war histories She likes to explore the mundane, the everyday machinations of daily life through poetry. She lives in Mumbai with her partner & cat. Her work has been featured in Lunch Ticket, The Remington Review, Ayaskala Magazine, The Banyan Review, The Alipore Post, ChaiCopy MCH and The Remnant Archive.