Love is but a Circus

That night.
That night .
We lay under the starlight,
watching the circus of the sky-
of stars and velvet clouds
rising like a curtain,
to the drumbeat of our hearts.

Lovelorn fingers
touched ever so slightly,
a dance through the grass and dew,
like whispers in a sleeping forest.

We took the sky
and tore it down the middle-
half for you, and half for me.
The sky, a fabric.
The sequined stars obeyed
the rhythm of love and longing.
Amused, they twinkled, danced, disappeared-
like acrobats,
reappearing on another side on command.
Like a deck of cards in a juggler’s hand,
they shifted, shuffled,
became new constellations,
new galaxies-
like a snow globe shaken by dreams.
We saw the universe shifting.

For love is like that-
a magician’s hat
pulling out things that never existed.

Only the moon-
ah, the moon-
stood at the edge,
watching us with her slanted gaze.
She was the ringmaster,
the keeper of truths,
the witness of secrets.

She would not split herself-
not for our foolish hearts,
not even for her faithful night,
scented dark and wild by our passion.

No , said the moon.
I have seen love.
I have seen love.
I’ve seen it clothed in finery and silk,
only to dissolve into smoke.
I’ve seen it carved into soft monuments,
only to be paid for by the severing of hands.
I’ve heard the quiet cracking of hearts,
and the thundering betrayal of romance.

So I will not bend.
Not divide.
Not even for your stitched-together dreams.

Yet still-
she tilted.
She moved just enough,
to let a sliver of light fall on us,
like a whisper,
like hope spilling from her craters.

For even ancient eyes
can still believe in new beginnings.
But they do not-
they cannot–
forget the endings.

Bhavna
9 June 2025