For Mr. Stardust

If the universe asks me to explain love, I will hand it your name.
I’ll be honest, I’ve never been great with definitions.
But I know what love feels like, because I’ve been coming home to it every day since I met you.

They say the odds of finding someone who understands your silence, are slimmer than rain falling upward.
But I met you and now, I question gravity.

You showed up like a well-timed metaphor in a sentence that didn’t know it needed saving. It was not too loud, not scripted, just about right.

Love, with you, feels like laughing in traffic because you said something stupid and perfect.
Like knowing someone is in your corner; not just clapping when you win, but holding you steady when you don’t.

Like the way your presence turns a regular Thursday into something worth writing a poem about.

You don’t just turn up, you stay.
You’re not here to fix me; you just make it easier to breathe, like stillness after a long day, or the first sip of tea when it’s raining outside.

You’ve seen me in the in-between; in the mess of my worst days, in the silence of doubt, and you’ve never once asked me to hurry.

You carry your past like a spine, not ashamed of the weight, but as something that’s taught you how to stand tall.

They don’t tell you this, but love isn’t always grand gestures.
Sometimes it’s, switching off the lights because I forgot, pulling the blanket over me at 3 a.m., charging my phone when I’ve left it dying.
It’s the way you don’t flinch when I fall apart; you just sit there, reserve space, and make sure I come back whole.

Love, with you, is quiet.
Not because it’s small, but because it knows it doesn’t need to raise its voice to be heard.
It’s a blissful #HappilyEverMiNe because I know, like poetry, we rhyme.

Love, with you, is a relaxing afternoon read, the kind where I lose track of time, curled up with something I don’t have to rush through.
It’s the quiet conviction that I’m exactly where I want to be.

And when you laugh, it’s not music, but the moment before the music, the hush that tells you, something beautiful is about to happen.

So if the universe still insists on an answer, I will not recite dictionaries.
I will invite it for coffee, point to the man who always gets the ratio right.
And smile to let it see;
the way you love without performance, the way you stand still in a world that spins too fast, the way my name sounds truer and different when you say it.

– Neha Sharma