I'm finding I don't
have much to say
anymore unless
the sentence starts
with your name.

I have written you one
hundred and eighty
one poems about stars
and blackberries fat
as thumbs, and your
hands and sweet
plums, because that's
what I do:
word play, cabaret –
but if these are just myths
I perpetuate because I'm
a perpetual liar, believe me
                                            anyway.

At twilight in the cave the bats gracefully emerge; sacrificing their lives to fly and play in the wind. Sweeping in diagonally perched on wooden posts the owls watch and wait for their prey. I marvel at gods game and sit in silence. karma pulls up and pulls out her self-division at the scene. I am magnetically drawn towards a single owl poised on a tree. I whisper to the creature, speak to me. The owl sings: puchu puchu! I sing back the crazy tune. The owl spots my red jacket nestled on my body and teaches me the blues. I come back a rainbow grounded on the green encased in a purple hue.

A gray winter morning,
Cold and silent;
Shrouded in the gray mist,
Even the birds are sleeping.

I think of the great silences:
Lonely winding roads after dusk,
The quiet, leather-bound libraries,
The forever unsaid words…
From the lips of the newly dead;

And then, somehow, I think of you
Drifting somewhere in this wide world;
We are separated by a million hearts,
In the cacophony of voices,
Just two voiceless strangers,
With so much left to say.

I am a star, among the countless stars,
Frozen in a dark universe,
Utterly silent, oblivious
To the babble of the planets.

Diptesh Ghosh

A poem short and straight
A few spaces and phrases
Mistakes, need not be afraid.
I can undone the done.

be wary of the boy whose smile
doesn’t reach his eyes;
of the boy who touches your body
before he touches any other part of you;
of the boy who’d rather stay in
than take you out
and show you off.
don’t fall for the boy who swears
up and down that he’s changed,
that he’s going to put your first,
that those other girls don’t mean a thing.
stay away from the boy who doesn’t
write you love letters
and slip them into your bag,
the boy who doesn’t lay
beneath the starlit sky with you,
the boy who doesn’t compliment
you when you’re at your worst,
the boy who doesn’t keep you on your toes
because these are the kinds
of things you deserve, plus more,
and you’re way too young to feel
heartbreak.

The password we always use
The recurring dream
our favorite type of abuse
our self-esteem

What we are hungry for at midnight
What we feel bad about taking
whose hands we hold too tight
whose heart we are breaking