What is love, thou ask'st, with lips like petals pressed in doubt?
Is it a whisper in the dark, or something souls can live without?
Nay love is not perfume in the air,
But the scent of rain on burnt letters,
...
Where do the broken swans go, when lakes forget their name?
Do stars still sing for feathers torn, or whisper them in shame?
The moon once kissed their wings with light, now hides behind the veil,
As silence grows in sacred throats, too soft, too bruised to wail.
...
Anup Dahal (Psycho Poet) A voice carved in ink and silence, Anup Dahal writes not merely to fill pages, but to let the unsaid breathe. Known to his readers as Psycho Poet, he blends tenderness with truth, stitching pain, love, and longing into verses that make hearts ache and heal at once. From the hills of Ilam, Nepal, his poetry travels far beyond borders, whispering to strangers, comforting the broken, and questioning the world's quiet cruelties. His works, including The Unspoken Words and a lifetime of soul-worn lines, carry the weight of both personal battles and universal human struggles. For Anup, poetry is not art alone—it is confession, rebellion, and prayer. Each piece is written to linger in the reader's heart long after the final line, as if the poem itself refuses to say goodbye. 'I do not write to be remembered. I write so no one feels forgotten.')
And Yet, Love Remained
What is love, thou ask'st, with lips like petals pressed in doubt?
Is it a whisper in the dark, or something souls can live without?
Nay love is not perfume in the air,
But the scent of rain on burnt letters,
The musk of a pillow that still holds her hair.
It is not the flame in a lover's eye,
But the warmth in a bowl of soup a mother serves at midnight,
When no one sees,
When silence sleeps on the couch beside you.
Love is the anchor in a stormy sea,
The phoenix that claws its way from ash,
Bleeding wings reborn just to protect the same fire that killed it.
It is the bruise a father kisses in his son's failure,
The sob he swallows behind a proud smile,
And the dust on his shoes from chasing dreams not his own.
Love walks barefoot across shattered glass,
Not to be heroic,
But because someone else might bleed if it doesn't.
It is the prayer of the forgotten,
The gold thread in a widow's shawl,
Stitched from memories of a voice that now lives only in tea-time silence.
Sometimes it is rage restrained,
Sometimes,
The joy of watching someone you love fall in love with someone else,
And still hoping they're happy.
Love is not the words we write,
But the pauses we fear,
The messages we delete,
And the goodbyes we rehearse in dreams.
It is both sword and balm,
A garden that blossoms only if you're willing to bury your name beneath it.
So ask not what love is,
But feel it in the ache between two glances,
In the ghost of a heartbeat you carry for someone who forgot yours.
And if after all the fire, the silence, the surrender,
You still say,
'I'd do it again',
Then know this:
You have not merely loved,
You have become love.
And that is how it remains.