Share my covers, share my skin
share my worries and my dreams.

It feels like death.
because after all I was never really given a choice-
the way everything dies.

All I was told was to keep moving on
not look back
**** up my tears and not whine
it was in sadness, I gagged.

They tell me that this is not worth my time,
But this feels like death
yet not one without regrets,
or a swift demise
because I (totally) feel like I have been ripped into pieces.

You go, I watched
and counted till dawn, as if things would get better.
What you don’t know?
It’d always be you,
and I’d always be bitter.

There is nothing more which I can or would say
its death, for you and I.

Left alone now, made to survive
Clinging on too tight would only drain me dry.

It has been quite a while,
since I saw you this up close.

We were seated across each other at the rounded table,
having home-cooked dinner, the way we used to with your family.

We had the usual dishes, served with light hearted banter
and bits of chatter about every day’s trivia.
Big brother was humming a song,
and there was a chime of little sister’s laughter
because Dad told another joke while recounting his days.

You were pretty much the same.
Hair neatly waxed, the way it is after work.
Combed up. To the right.

I recall wondering how distance and familiarity
can co-exist in such harmony.
Quite a cinematic setting, is this scripted?
I must be acting, or dreaming.

You wolfed down every mouthful,
as your jaw clenched and relaxed
and your chopsticks scraped the bottom of the ceramic bowl.

“Eat more! Eat it all!”, Mother teasingly chide

And your eyes darted across the room,
crinkle into a smile, before it hit me –bullseye

as I glanced away,

I caught a glimpse of that silhouette,
that girl by your bed idling and
swinging her legs.

I knew better: we were each other.
Possibly going by another name,
a different face,
just that I was ahead.

She leaned forward.
Our eyes met.

And in that split second
of silent confrontation, I was reminded
that it was my duty,
to be happy for you in this realm –your reality.

It does not take a blazing comet
or rounds of tectonic tremors to
pry our grounds open.

Neither would the giant waves lashing,
or the angry volcano
swallow us whole.

Torpedoes, tornadoes, guns, germs and steel
do not suffice in bringing our annihilation.

From within,

a cosmic revolution
-where fates change and stories rewritten,

and all it takes could be merely
a fraction of a moment missed,
a heart navigating on a compass
misaligned,
or another that ceased beating.

Because I wanted to be the shade of lace
that hugged at my arcs and ridges,
blushing deeper as you peeled it away
from my skin.

Maroon,
because it painted the
the constellation,carefully planted
down
my
spine

and coloured the speckles of tiny stars,
huddling beneath the fortress of my jaw,
while the others were lost,
but cradled safely
in the dimple of my collar bones.