Five Poems by Thanya

Young practicing psychologist and writer based in Kozhikode, India. Holds a Master’s degree in Applied Psychology from Pondicherry Central University. Writing since childhood, her work often explores love in its many forms: quiet, complicated, fleeting, and enduring. Drawing from her understanding of human emotions, she weaves together personal reflection and insight to create pieces that feel both intimate and universally relatable.

Watch Thanya’s Poetry Reading on Saranga channel here

1

Echoes of the soul

I’ve known you

before this life, before names,

before skin, before the shape of your smile,

became the map I’d memorize in sleep.

My heart recognized you

long before my eyes did.

Long before you walked toward me

like a question I already knew how to answer.

There was no shock when we met

just a settling.

Like coming home

to a place I hadn’t realized I missed.

You spoke, and it was music

I couldn’t place

but had somehow danced to

in a dream

I’d forgotten I’d dreamed.

Being near you

wasn’t new.

It was remembering.

Like pages in me

had been left blank

just waiting for your handwriting.

In another life,

I think we met under stars

that don’t exist anymore.

Maybe we were strangers in the same city,

passing each other, for years

before the universe exhaled

and let us find our way back.

And even if this version of us

doesn’t last forever,

I’ll still be grateful,

because I know

we’ll find each other again.

In the next life,

or the one after that,

I’ll meet you

in a different sky

with the same heart.

And I’ll say,

like I did this time:

“It’s you. It’s always been you.”

2

Starlight for you

If stars were mine to give away,

I’d hang one for you every day.

Not for the world or skies to see,

But just to map what you are to me.

Not glittering shows or cosmic pride,

But quiet fires I’d keep inside.

A secret sky, a silent art,

A universe beneath my heart.

By now that sky would hum and glow,

A quiet light that few would know.

Not loud, not grand, just softly true,

A quiet place I built for you.

And if you asked me what it’s for,

Why I kept making stars and more,

I’d smile the way I always do,

Some things are built because of you.

3

Imagine

In the depths of my soul, a storm rages on

A heart once full, now a hollowed down home

I thought I’d be free, but memories remain

Haunting me still, making me insane

Sleep’s elusive whisper, a fleeting guest

Nightmares of your smile, my restless chest

The shadows we created, now taunt and tease

A cruel reminder of what I chose to release

Your new dawn breaks, a radiant, sun-kissed glow

While I’m lost in this twilight, where shadows grow

The weight of what if’s, a heavy chain

A heartbreak I forged, yet can’t break this pain

This hollowed space, lost in thought

Memories whisper an aching fault

A heartbreak I orchestrated, yet I can’t unwind

The memories of what we had, forever left behind.

4

Ash in mercy

Last night,

I stopped folding.

I started burning.

One by one,

I watched your name catch flame.

Watched the letters curl like lips

Trying to hold in every I miss you

I never had the courage to say out loud.

Ashes don’t apologize.

They don’t explain.

They don’t ask you to come back.

They simply stop being

What they were supposed to be.

Do you know what it feels like

To watch something beautiful disappear,

And realize it might be the kindest thing

You’ve ever done for yourself?

It wasn’t about punishing the past.

It wasn’t revenge, or drama, or theatrics.

It was mercy.

Mercy for the version of me

Who waited for her call too long.

Mercy for the hands that shook

Every time I tried to press “Send” but didn’t.

Mercy for the love

That deserved better

Than staying trapped on a page

That would never reach you.

I don’t remember exactly what I wrote anymore.

But I remember the glow.

I remember standing there,

Fingers warmed by goodbye,

Smoke rising like a ghost learning how to be free.

And I think,

If love must end,

Let it burn

Bright, soft, clean,

Until all that’s left, is something

I don’t have to carry anymore.

5

Quietly beautiful

It wasn’t the kind of love

that burns cities to the ground

or writes history books.

It was quieter than that. Soft.

Like the space between two people

who don’t have to explain themselves.

And maybe that’s what made it beautiful.

Not in the dramatic way people talk about,

but in the way your hand fit around a glass of coffee,

or how you’d hum songs under your breath

without realizing you were doing it.

I used to think love needed to be complicated

to mean something,

but you taught me otherwise.

It was that simple.

And it was beautiful.

A lot of people don’t have that luxury.

We didn’t fight for it to stay.

Didn’t claw at the edges when it frayed.

We just looked at each other one day

and knew the timing was wrong,

or maybe we were wrong,

or maybe it was just one of those things

that bloom for a while and then bow out

before they can rot.

It ended the same way it began.

Softly,

with more understanding than anger,

more gratitude than regret.

And no matter how many people

ask me why I still remember you,

why I still smile at the memory of a love

that never made it to forever,

I don’t explain anymore.

Some things don’t need explaining.

It was that simple.

And it was beautiful.

And honestly,

that’s more than most people ever get

in a lifetime.

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