dark romance poetry
layla anjum
mumbai  ·  she/her  ·  est. 2025
000
playing  something sad and too loud

✦ obsession · heartbreak · 3am ✦

Layla
Anjum dark romance

writing about the parts of love they never warn you about

scroll deeper ↓

✦ about the poet ✦
Layla Anjum

Layla Anjum

15  ·  Mumbai  ·  she/her  ·  🌙 🏳️‍🌈

Indian father. Singaporean mother. Born between two worlds and still figuring out where I belong.

I write about obsession, toxic attachment, jealousy, the specific way you can miss someone you should probably hate. About 3am overthinking that doesn't stop just because you ask it to. About emotionally dangerous people and the embarrassing truth that you keep going back anyway.

🥀 dark romance 📱 notes app poet 🌙 late nights 🕌 proud muslim 🏳️‍🌈 proud lesbian ✈️ mumbai via singapore 💔 heartbreak 🩸 obsession

proud muslim. proud lesbian.

if you hate lgbtq or pretend to be a girl online for attention — stay away and get a life. seriously.

website: www.heyitslayla.in

you were the best thing that ever ruined me

— things i thought but didn't say

POEMS
01

August 14, 2025

3:17

it's 3:17 and i'm staring at the ceiling like it owes me an explanation for why you're still the last thing my brain decides to think about before everything goes dark
it's 3:17 and i'm staring at the ceiling like it owes me an explanation for why you're still the last thing my brain decides to think about before everything goes dark i've replayed the conversation fourteen times now. maybe fifteen. i lost count somewhere between "i didn't mean it like that" and the part where i said okay even though nothing about it was okay you don't know what you do to me and i hate that most the way you exist so easily while i'm here pulling threads out of our last conversation looking for the loose one that started the unraveling my phone's at 12% and i should sleep but i keep thinking about what you meant when you said "you're a lot" because yeah i know i am but i didn't think you thought so too i talked to no one about you today stuffed you behind my ribs in the place where i keep all the things i'm too scared to say out loud and now at 3:17 you're leaking out anyway tomorrow i'll act like i'm fine tomorrow i'll leave your message on read and feel nothing or at least feel it quieter but right now it's 3:17 and you're so loud inside my head that i actually hate you a little for having that kind of rent-free access to the worst hours of my night
tap to read
collapse
02

September 3, 2025

possession

i know this is ugly i know it makes me the bad one but when i saw her laughing with you i wanted to disappear both of you into a version of today that never happened
i know this is ugly i know it makes me the bad one but when i saw her laughing with you i wanted to disappear both of you into a version of today that never happened i counted the seconds you looked at her yes i did i stood there being normal being fine being "oh no i'm totally okay with this" while internally i was something i don't have a clean word for possessive feels too small obsessed feels too dramatic jealous feels too simple for what was happening in my chest when she touched your arm and you didn't move away i don't want to be like this i don't want to be the girl who keeps score in her head and pretends she's not i know the difference between love and control i've read the articles had the conversation with myself a hundred times and still when it comes to you i cannot seem to care about any of that you belong to no one technically you've said it over and over and you're right you're right you're right but 3 seconds with her and i'm in the bathroom typing this into my notes app trying to get you out of my bloodstream so i can go back out there and be normal the worst part isn't the jealousy it's that i'd do it again tomorrow if it meant being near you at all i'll delete this later i always do
tap to read
collapse
03

September 21, 2025

cherry red flags

they say red flags taste like warning but yours tasted like the kind of thing you eat knowing it'll make you sick and choosing it anyway
they say red flags taste like warning but yours tasted like the kind of thing you eat knowing it'll make you sick and choosing it anyway because at least it's something real in a world that's mostly nothing everyone saw it but me or maybe i saw it first and decided the view from inside the burning thing was worth whatever came after you were never subtle about it you were loud and careless and sometimes cruel in the specific way that only people who actually know you can be cruel and i kept showing up like "okay but also i love you" the night you said "you're too sensitive for this" i went home googled it read twelve articles closed all the tabs and came back the next day what is that what do you even call that i call it not knowing better yet i call it being fifteen and still learning what it means to be chosen by someone who keeps choosing to leave you had warning signs the size of billboards and i read every single one and still thought yeah but they're so pretty though that's the thing about beautiful disasters you can see them clearly and still walk in because some part of you keeps thinking you'll be the exception i wasn't the exception i was just another girl who learned that red flags were the most interesting thing anyone had ever shown her and stayed anyway because boring and safe never felt like enough
tap to read
collapse
i kept choosing you even when choosing you meant choosing pain. i think that's the most honest thing i've ever admitted.

— notes app, 2:58am, october

04

October 5, 2025

read 11:43pm

read at 11:43pm and it's now 2:08am and i've opened our chat probably nine times since then
read at 11:43pm and it's now 2:08am and i've opened our chat probably nine times since then each time i think maybe now maybe this time the three dots will appear and you'll type something that makes sense of the silence something i can hold onto and not feel so stupid for but the silence just keeps sitting there in the blue light of my phone comfortable in a way i am not i reread what i sent you looking for the thing that scared you off was it too much? was it "i missed you today" specifically or was it the honesty of it that you couldn't handle because i've been noticing lately that people can love you fine until you stop pretending you don't need things and then suddenly you're "too much" you're "intense" you're the reason they needed space as if you made them go quiet as if the read receipt is somehow your fault read at 11:43pm i hate that i'm thinking about this i hate that i'm writing it i hate that tomorrow i'll probably act completely unbothered when i'm anything but and the next time you text like nothing happened i'll probably say "haha no worries" and mean none of it because that's what we do isn't it we pretend we're smaller than the hurt we're carrying so people feel okay about putting it there
tap to read
collapse
05

October 18, 2025

seven months of you

seven months and i still know which side of the bed you sleep on in a room i've never been in that's the kind of knowledge that comes from obsession not from love
seven months and i still know which side of the bed you sleep on in a room i've never been in that's the kind of knowledge that comes from obsession not from love except it felt like love which is the problem you left in the way people leave when they don't want to feel bad about leaving slowly so slowly that i didn't notice until i was standing at the end looking back at all the distance you'd quietly put between us and i kept moving toward you every time you moved away because i thought closeness was something you could fix by wanting it harder seven months of learning what your silences meant of reading between your lines of knowing which version of you showed up on which days and adjusting myself accordingly i became fluent in you and then you just stopped speaking and now i have all this knowledge about a person who doesn't want to be known by me anymore seven months and i still catch myself about to text you something stupid about a song that came on or something that happened and then i remember and put my phone face down and just sit with it i don't know how to unknow you i don't know what to do with all the space you took up now that you've left it empty seven months feels like a language i learned for a country that doesn't exist anymore
tap to read
collapse
06

November 2, 2025

i saved every screenshot

there's a folder on my phone called "memories" and it's just us and i still open it sometimes when it's late and i forget why we stopped
there's a folder on my phone called "memories" and it's just us and i still open it sometimes when it's late and i forget why we stopped screenshots of you being funny screenshots of you being mean and then apologizing three messages later screenshots of "okay but actually though" and "why are you like this" and "i was thinking about you today" i have the exact timestamp of the last time you said something that made me feel like the most important thing in anyone's world october 12th 9:47pm it was something small it always is and then slowly it wasn't i know this is embarrassing keeping receipts of something that ended badly like evidence for a court case where i'm both the lawyer and the crime but deleting it feels like the final admission that it's over and i'm not ready to make it official so i keep scrolling back not to feel better but to feel something accurate to confirm it was real that i didn't imagine how good it was before it got bad the screenshots are proof that for a while someone looked at me and wanted to stay and right now that proof is the only thing i trust
tap to read
collapse
the worst kind of missing is when you can't explain to yourself why it still hurts. you just know it does.

— somewhere between sleep and giving up

07

November 15, 2025

the way you said my name

there were two versions of my name in your mouth the one when you were happy soft and like it meant something good and the one when you were about to make me feel small
there were two versions of my name in your mouth the one when you were happy soft and like it meant something good and the one when you were about to make me feel small i learned to read the difference in the first syllable before you even finished saying it i'd already be bracing and the terrible thing is i kept showing up to a person who made me flinch at the sound of my own name you never yelled that would have been easier easy things are easier to leave you were worse than yelling you had this tone this specific flatness that meant i have decided you're wrong and i'm not going to argue about it i'm just going to be quiet until you feel it and i would feel it every time and then apologize for something i'm still not completely sure i did i think about the way you said my name when you were happy and i want that version back so badly that i sometimes forget it came packaged with the other one you can't have the good version without the risk of the bad one and that's the choice i kept making over and over until finally i didn't but god the good version of my name in your voice i've never been able to explain what that did to me and that's maybe the saddest part of all of this
tap to read
collapse
08

December 1, 2025

still wearing it

it's been three months and i'm still wearing the bracelet you gave me as an afterthought at the end of a tuesday when you said "here, i don't want it anymore"
it's been three months and i'm still wearing the bracelet you gave me as an afterthought at the end of a tuesday when you said "here, i don't want it anymore" and i said okay and put it on immediately and haven't taken it off since which tells you everything about the dynamic between us doesn't it you discarded something i turned it into a shrine i've slept in it showered in it the silver's starting to turn that color that means it needs cleaning but cleaning it feels like interrupting something i'm not ready to end my friends have noticed and they have this look the one that means "we're worried but we're not gonna say it" and i appreciate that and also i hate it here's the thing about holding onto objects they don't help you move on they help you feel close which is not the same thing and i know the difference i just don't act like i do the bracelet is not you i know that it's metal and it doesn't miss me back it doesn't remember that tuesday or any tuesday before it it doesn't carry anything but i do and until i figure out where to put it i'll keep it here around my wrist where you left it where i chose to keep it
tap to read
collapse
09

December 20, 2025

ya allah, why her

i've been praying five times a day since i was seven years old and tonight i don't know what to ask for
i've been praying five times a day since i was seven years old and tonight i don't know what to ask for because i can't ask you to make her love me i know that's not how it works i can't ask you to make me stop feeling this because i don't think i actually want that even though it would be easier i just sit there in the quiet after isha and i think about her and i feel guilty for thinking about her while talking to you and then i feel guilty for feeling guilty because isn't this exactly what you made me this whole complicated person who loves in ways that are difficult i don't think i'm broken i think i'm just a lot all at once and i believe in you i do i believe you didn't make a mistake when you made me exactly like this and i believe there's something in it i can't see yet but tonight at 11:30pm after maghrib turned to isha and isha turned to me sitting cross-legged on the prayer mat still in my dupatta i just want to ask why her out of everyone why did you put her in front of me and make her so impossible to stop thinking about i'm not angry i'm just very tired and also fifteen which i think should count for something ya allah i don't know what i'm asking for i just needed to tell you that i'm confused and that i trust you anyway i hope that's enough for tonight
tap to read
collapse
some feelings don't have names yet.
i'm living inside one. it's dark in here. it's also the most alive i've ever felt.

— december, 4am, notes app

✦ the one that took longest ✦
10

January 8, 2026

texture

before you i didn't know heartbreak had a texture i thought it was just sadness but it's not. sadness is soft. you can sleep through sadness.
before you i didn't know heartbreak had a texture i thought it was just sadness but it's not sadness is soft and you can sleep through it heartbreak is different heartbreak sits in your chest like something swallowed wrong somewhere between your throat and the place where breathing happens and it doesn't hurt exactly it's more like a pressure like the word almost like the feeling of a door closing that you knew was closing and watched anyway it tastes like the back of your throat at 4am when you haven't slept it sounds like the middle of a song that was okay until it wasn't and the weird thing the thing nobody says is that it's embarrassing more than anything else more than the crying more than the 3am texts you thankfully didn't send the embarrassing part is that you thought you were the exception you thought that somehow this one time the thing that happens to everyone wouldn't happen to you because this one felt different and you believed that completely until you didn't have to anymore before you heartbreak was a concept a sad song category on spotify something in movies after you it's the weight of my phone when it doesn't buzz it's the specific silence of someone who used to be loud it's 7pm feeling like midnight because everything just does that now it's texture it's temperature it's the place in my chest that got rearranged to fit you and now sits slightly wrong because you're not in it anymore before you i was fine i didn't know what i didn't know after you i know everything and i'd give it all back in a second for the not knowing for the before for the version of me who hadn't learned yet what missing you feels like from the inside
tap to read
collapse
✦ the last section ✦

things i'll
never send

drafts. deleted. still here.

unsent

To: the one who left without a reason

i don't need an apology anymore. i gave up waiting for that around month two. i just want to know if you think about it. if you ever open our chat and scroll to the beginning the way i do. if you remember the day we laughed for two hours about something stupid and i thought okay. this person. this is the one i want to keep. i don't need you back. i really don't. i just need to know that it mattered to you too. even a little. even once. because it's easier to be left by someone who felt something than to accept that maybe i cared about someone who just didn't. you don't have to reply. you never have to reply. i just needed to say it somewhere.
unsent

To: me, eight months ago

don't. i know how that sounds. i know you won't listen because i didn't either. but just hear me out. she's not going to turn into the person you want her to be. she's already the person she is. and she's not bad. she's just not careful with people. and you need to be handled carefully. that's not a flaw. that's just the truth. you're going to spend the next seven months folding yourself into shapes that are easier for her to hold. and she's still going to put you down. not because you're too much. just because you're not hers. i know you love her. i know. it's real and it counts and it mattered. let it matter. just don't let it take more than it already will. you're going to be okay. i promise. (you're going to cry a lot first. but okay is where it ends up.)
unsent

To: her

i know you know. that's the worst part. you know and you've been kind about it in that gentle unbearable way that people are kind when they don't want to hurt you but also can't give you what you want. and i appreciate it. and also i hate it. because every time you smile at me like that i have to do this whole internal thing where i remind myself what's real and what i'm building in my head. and it's exhausting. and it's not your fault. and i hate that it's not your fault. i'm not angry at you. i just wish i'd never figured it out. i was fine before i knew this about myself. or at least i thought i was. and now i'm here knowing something true about who i am and also knowing that the first person i feel it for is someone i can't say it to. this isn't your problem. this is just something i needed to say to someone who'll never read it. you're one of the best people i know. i hope you know that. i hope you never read this. — layla
unsent

To: anyone who's felt like this

you're not too much. i know that's what they made you feel. or what you decided on your own after one too many times of watching someone choose something easier. but you're not too much. you're just looking for someone who isn't overwhelmed by you. and that person exists. i believe that even on the nights when i don't believe anything. you're not broken for feeling everything so loudly. you're not dramatic. you're not a problem to be managed. you're someone who loves like it means something. that's not the flaw. that's the whole point. keep going. it's okay if you're going slowly. just keep going.
unsent

To: whoever finds these

hi. i don't know you but you found this which means you were looking for something. or scrolling at 2am wondering if anyone else feels this way. they do. i do. a fifteen year old girl in mumbai who writes about feelings too big for her does. i hope you're okay. i hope if you're not okay you're at least not alone in it. this whole website was basically just me putting the inside of my head somewhere it could exist without crushing me. thanks for being here for it. — layla anjum (notes app, always) (mumbai, usually) (heartbroken, sometimes) (fine, eventually)

— layla anjum, 2025–2026

written at 3am · saved in notes · never meant to be found