ABOUT THE POEM: This poem examines romantic relationships through a cold, observational lens shaped by personal loss. It explores how modern intimacy often operates like a marketplace, where strategic behavior, material stability, and emotional performance are rewarded over sincerity and patience. The speaker reflects on betrayal not as an isolated act, but as a predictable outcome of social incentives that encourage manipulation and post-choice rationalization. What emerges is not hatred, but disillusionment-a recognition that rational choices can still leave everyone emotionally poorer. The poem documents the psychological aftermath of loving honestly in a system that does not prioritize honesty, leaving the speaker alive, lucid, and stripped of illusion.Title — Rational But Emptier
To love a woman,
she must be offered a reason.
Give her information,
make an impact, remove hesitation.
Don’t bluff-stay tough;
she decides if you’re good enough.
Wealth is the first reason.
Love comes second, of course.
She wants to live in this world,
not inside some cheap prison.
Make her believe
you are the best option.
Drip-feed this understanding.
Tell her you love her the most.
Keep her happy-never ghost.
Who can do this as it is?
The man who gossips,
bad-mouthing the third
whenever two are together, talking.
He flashes his smart-ass edge,
lies his way into the role
of the better man-
the loving one,
the caring one.
With promises
to never leave her side,
he crowns himself a superhero
above the rest,
who-he claims-
only want her body.
This is how the system works-
cold, calculated, rewarded.
My long life had only four days:
two spent in desire,
two wasted in waiting.
Before she grasps what happened,
she is already swept away.
Once she feels used,
she has no choice but to claim
it was her own decision-
otherwise, why allow it?
Soon, she believes her own lies.
She sees nothing wrong
with what she chose;
but silence against evil
is not mere cowardice.
She danced to the womanizer’s tune knowingly,
knew who truly loved her,
yet chose his lap all the same.
Here I stand, thinking-
what the fuck happened?
I wander like a stray
while everyone else eats, drinks,
enjoys the evening, and sleeps.
First she broke my heart,
then laid the pieces on the anvil,
hammered them into powder and dust.
She grabbed a fistful,
held it at my eye level,
blew gently, and said:
“Look, son-of-a-bitch sweetheart-
that’s how it’s done.”
The powder catches the wind,
grains lost to indifferent air.
She turns away, lap already full-
no trace of what was there.
Love’s remains: everywhere, nowhere.
Don’t giggle at my misfortune-
I’m alive, not dead yet.
