My lips stitched
And ears made doubly sensitive,
Acquiring the deadliest and smoothest of sounds
Like the foreskin of a premature penis exposed
To the touches of raw-skinned fingers.
My eyes like one huge colour of sadness,
Taking in the light like sad absorbing stones,
Submerged in the sand beach beside the black sea
Where no one is arriving in no known boat.
My hands with ropes twined so they are one restricted entity,
Thin, coloured plaster of paris, unlucky things, full of feelings.
My feet, shameful growths of tamed desire,
Walking on roads that feel like an extension to his heart,
Empty chest like pressed dried-up flowers,
Between two pages of his neglected notebook
Where a blank has replaced the word love
And the tears shed no more make the paper bulge and thin,
But heavy instead, full of his memory in their water.
He has gone to the days that never rise like the dead,
Their longings stiffened to the red glow of the morning sun
That in his absence come out as moons and stars in the night sky,
Like the symptoms of an incurable disease
Punishing my skin with harsh red rashes of wanting.
I went to see him off, to give away his belongings,
Like the toenails and the ringlets of my thighs
That had remained attached to me like his sticky memory.
I went to give him the heat I had swallowed,
The hibiscuses of his name
And the shameful display of my naked body to the open sky,
Thinking the blue mantle might reflect the gaze.
But before he might be gone,
His black car was like a ghost whisking him away,
And before our bodies, stained glasses telling stories, could be shattered,
Punishing him of the lack like a dry valley in his deep liveliness
Of fullness that could have been me,
So that I may be allowed to plant
Greenery on his brown barren soil,
That one day he might remember me
When freshness seizes him like destiny.
Sharuth Eiasava is the pen name of Tushar Srivastava. He is a graduate of English Literature from Delhi University, and currently spends his days writing and reading.
Featured image: Lareised Leneseur /Unsplash