You can rewind a cassette
And pause at the exact spot
When the notes hit a new high,
Or the voice dips just enough
For you to feel a tingling, gaping
Ache, gnawing away at the pit of
Your stomach. You hear the words,
The slurring sadness and the nasal
Yearning; you can feel it again and again till
Your body becomes a symphony
of melodies in the process of being felt.
For three years long, we would make each
Other playlists to listen to. With snatches of
Our favourite poetry painted in nail ink
Over the cases. The aesthetic decadent.
The impression, fleeting. Eliot inhabiting a space
With Cohen. But in all those moments of star-kissed
Sharing, it passed us how romance is a pseudonym for
Con-men and that the memories we create shall one
Day become souvenirs of loss. Of hurt and ache. Of desire
And yearning for the darker spaces behind your kohl
Lined eyes and the hollow of my ear lobes.
We live in a vacuum of time and space where forever is
A lie we tell each other to only avoid facing finality.
Now we are apart. You with someone else. Me wrapped in
Sheets with another. The sex is average. But on nights
When the city is a riot of blazing lights, gleaming like
Orbs suspended in heaven I often look at my shelf
And wonder if you still listen to Spanish love ballads
I gifted you one monsoon.
Wisteria and roses die. Words get lost in translation.
But memories don’t. They burn long past they are felt
Only to be returned to us in the embers of heartache
On nights the stars forget to keep us company and shine.
Anwesh Banerjee is a regular student-dreamer hoping his tryst with college doesn’t end one Friday on a Google Meet. Poetry till then. You can fin him on Instagram @anwesh_speaketh
Featured image credit: 愚木混株 Cdd20/Pixabay