A Recipe for a Broken Heart

Ingredients:

2 beating hearts, one warm, one cold

1 more cruel word

1 unspoken apology

2 weeks of waiting

10 days of bitterness

1 week of insecurity

1 day of longing

1 day of self-pity (could be substituted by complaints)

1 day of anger

1 day of recrimination (this can continue over the next two days)

1 day of indecision

1 day of hardened resolve

1 day of silence

Love and pride in equal measures

Method:

Keep the hearts side by side. Add love and pride in equal measures. (Keep adding love and pride after each stirring to keep the hearts fresh.) Add the cruel word and keep aside for 2 weeks of waiting. Keep the unspoken apology in mind. After 4 days, add the bitterness. Wait for another 3 days and add insecurity. Stir in the longing, self-pity, anger, recrimination, indecision, resolve and top it up with silence. Serve elegantly on a purple plate with the unspoken apology as a side dish.

Alternative methods:

For two broken hearts, replace the cold heart with another warm one. The rest of the method holds.

Use three hearts instead of two for more interesting results.

If you are using a single heart, replace the cruel words with distant dreams. This method does not guarantee as exquisite a broken heart as the previous methods, and there is a greater risk that the heart will heal.

Warning:

Make sure the apology does not mix with the rest of the ingredients before serving. Premature addition of apologies might – though not necessarily – ruin the recipe for a broken heart.

Healing can start at any point of time from weeks to years depending on the hearts used. Guarantee expires after one month.

Note: This method works for both male and female hearts in various combinations.

Tried and tested over centuries.

Two Haikus

1.

I –

Wing across clouds.

Red swing, green earth, whirling leaves.

You –

Song on my lips.

2.

I –

Wind in the rain.

Dirt-flecks, dead leaves, leaking roof.

You –

Flame in my heart.

How can I smear

How can I smear

The rippling-water, soaring-bird, boy-laughter colour

Of your eyes with the dark clouds

Of my smudged eyeliner?

You smoke your cigarette, I mine.

Thus I won’t smear

Your cool-glass lips

With my sweat-sticky strawberry lip-gloss.

Matchstick lit

Matchstick lit,

That night you leaned

Your head against hers

And inhaled.

His gaze on my cheek,

I dangled my feet

Above grey water

And exhaled.

You snip at the hem

Of our patchwork house

With your brutal blade

Of honesty.

I sweep up the dust

Of darkness and deceit

And flush it down the chute

Of my silence.