Not Me, Never Me

Under the grey sky of Kolkata,

by the silent rails of Prinsep Ghat, I stood

not as your lover,

just a witness to a love that wasn’t mine.

You were crying…

but not for me.

Each tear you dropped,

felt like concentrated H₂SO₄ on my skin

not just burning,

but dehydrating my existence,

pulling every ounce of warmth out of my chest.

I wanted to hold your hands,

but they trembled for someone else.

I wanted to be your home,

but your heart still lived in his abandoned address.

The Hooghly flowed quietly,

like it knew this chemistry

how something pure can still dissolve

in the wrong solution.

Your voice cracked his name,

like a broken equilibrium,

and I realized

I was just a temporary reactant,

never meant to be in your final product.

That evening,

Kolkata didn’t feel like a city

it felt like a lab of pain,

and I was the experiment that failed.

Because loving you

wasn’t just heartbreak

it was corrosion.

© NILOY SHOUVIC ROY