Anshu Subedi

  There is a garden in me, hidden  with flowers no one has seen. Their petals stretch toward a sun I can barely touch, a warmth glowing quietly, like fire in a lantern, safe but aching to break free. I wish you could see it, this light, this flame. It’s enough to survive a thousand winters, but here it is, flickering in silence, waiting in the deep places of my heart. I have gathered stars for you whole constellations cupped in my hands, but when I try to give them, they slip through my fingers and fall back into the dark. My love speaks in a language I haven’t learned, a soft whisper , always just out of reach, and I stumble, trying to give it shape, to bring it to you in a way you’d feel, like sunlight, like rain, like something real. If only I knew how to hold you in this light and let it speak for me. If only you knew how deep, how quiet, how endless this love truly is.

  Maybe we never outgrow childhood; we just learn to carry it in secret... I think there's a little piece of us all, tucked away, that longs to throw caution to the wind and be free. To bite into a candy like it’s a forbidden thrill, to reach for colors and sounds that don’t belong to our “adult” world. It’s funny, isn’t it? This big world of responsibility we all walk through, carrying these little memories like fireflies in jars, like pieces of light we hide but cherish. Inside this grown-up shell, a child still lives,she’s the keeper of my joy, my freedom, and the pieces of my past I refuse to let fade. "Growing up is a collection of beautiful goodbyes, but sometimes I find myself clinging to one hello..that child who still lives, still breathes, still dreams." And here’s the truth: I don’t want to let her go, this child in me.  She’s the one who remembers how to live without fear.  She’s the one who knows how to find magic in the ordinary.  So, maybe I’m grown up...