we are two skeletons but one soul
bound together by shared affection and nothing more

your lines are traced with powdery debris
you assume clean in the light, yet
do not deign to erase in the dark
and mine are equally messy despite

when we walk alongside each other
your face buzzes into a blur against grey
i do not understand you
cannot understand you
do not want to understand you

instead, i try to pull you into my familiar screen of black and white
and you show me the rough edges of the grass blades across your skin
carving scars you cannot easily heal
these hurt me the same way it does you
but sometimes i forget that what i know
is ultimately not what it actually is

you are fleeting
i’m fleeting
(if only we could be fleeting in the same way
in the same direction
that could stand us still)

if only you knew i’m looking at you

this is a story about a candy store in winter

it stands lonely amongst popular, inhibitory acquaintances, trembling for any attention at all; its windows subtle mirrors to the scarves that float by, door softened by the touch of shivering palms, and desserts staining the bitter tongues of jilted lovers. a beige sweater sits on a high wooden stool behind the counter, jadedly, haphazardly, looking up from a rectangle of light to squint only at wisps of ice from the outside. little and big coats alike peer in eagerly to the picture of shelves lined with bags of brown, white, dust... friendship, gluttony, regret

today, you and your accompanying jacket defy the still air to step into the store. it is winter in a town built with unfamiliar corners and made jagged by cobblestones. you pull its stiff sleeves around the crooks and crannies of this place you do not know. look, you say, look at all the candy i’m going to buy. there is nary another in sight, and so in the anonymity the moment provides, it reciprocates to your genuine devotion, lays its calloused hand around your waist, pulls you within the space that exists between its heart and yours. its touch is chilly against your insulated skin, but you do not care. instead you relish in its fleeting affection, amble around like it is normal. you think, you are normal, we are normal, and then it exclaims, look at the candy i’m holding

laughter seeps from the knitting of the beige sweater, and amidst all the sweets, you think you are the one filled with the most amount of sugar

moments later, you place the bags of brown, white, dust on the counter; on its tongue, a crystallised candy from the basket. deft fingers turn your gifts into tan pouches and similar ribbons, its red lips asking in return, where is the factory from which your sweetness was made? at the question, the jacket’s touch freezes in the heat, leaves the small of your back and reinstates the space between, leaves the premises entirely to your own conviction. you then remember the memory of the army green garment walking on as you passed this candy store. perhaps it was yesterday, or perhaps it was years ago in your dreams. it is lonely, yet unlike you, it does not drown in the hope of something warmer than the pieces that visit

you remember that same image twice, thrice, many times. your surroundings have turned into an empty street—the smell of cocoa, and dim, yellow lights absent. you are standing alone in the middle of winter with sweets in hand, and the thrift shop jacket peppering the concrete in front of you with its indifferent threads of snow. chocolate is soft and melts easily despite the cold, but all you feel now is the bitterness of the bar that lies abandoned on the shelf, kept away from others like a ***** secret, paper cuts from the brown paper bag of the candy store

i once knew a man with whom i shared many firsts
spheres aligned, hours mundane, endeavours delicate
and now he is merely a passer-by whose face i've nursed in private over the years
inaccurately
slowly
expiring

there is a certain irony to terrains less explored
i hear the light voices, speaking of plainness
quiet
escape
yet amidst all these noise, we are the lonely ones
we are lonely in caution, in responsibility, in abandonment
in incapacity to do just the same

when you've been there
and i've always been here
our hearts are no longer made of the same stone
our bodies might intertwine under the sheets
but our avenues beyond your doors will never be bridged

how utterly melancholic that is

you are the cigarette i pull out of the box every other evening
after fourty-six and five thousand strides, three underpasses
and one last pedestrian crossing

as with the cigarette, i look forward to you, look forward to
the high derived from the very presence of you
of your enigmatic entity misting through my lungs like
a sick, heady liaison akin to that of beer and smoke

but as with it which stubs out before the junction of bartley
relinquishes within me a curt perspiration, a heightened vision
you ravel my walk, desiccate my lips, augment a melancholy
that after muddy fields and an overhead bridge
initiates yet another discretion away from blurry headlights

as with the two sticks, tuesday and friday
five~, but only in selected amity
you leave traces of tobacco and filter paper
grinding between my newly dentalised set
as the zephyrs of the monsoon season **** against the spark
the bitter aftertaste of something so wrong, accompanied by
the warmth in cold of something so right

because you were young i didn't care
i grabbed your face, showed your place
i could have grabbed your stray tongue too
i ruffled your hair, patted your back as the
vices ran loose from your soul, and with words
promised only what an older sister could
but in the midst of the night you were the body
i found myself weaved around with
until like-minded fellows sit by me in the ride
speaking, and really speaking

they told me that mystery is a virtue
that it intrigues and prevails over
dullness in the soul itself
i sigh into the fumes of my cup
caress a petal on the withering china
say, oh well i'm an open book
and an open book can't be closed

so tell me, tell me about
all the girls you've been with
are they fun, do they whine
have they seen your daze
after a long bottle of wine
can they swim, shall they cling
will they stroke your hair
when you are grim

then i will tell you about
your friend i like
he is cute, he pursues
but all i am haunted by
is your torn suit

i adore it
the way you grab me
by my chin
start an entanglement
you want to prolong
like forever

i adore you
but i do not 'like' you
i'm merely attached to
your arms
your wandering palms
your lips, and
the melting *** of cigarette smoke
with your natural scent

treat it as goodbye
goodbye to silly pipe dreams
goodbye to new-fangled beginnings
goodbye to what could have been

little girl, you better hold on
hold on tight to the charcoal
sturdiness of a railing, to the
warmth emitting from the
barrier of your father's arm, for
the bus would bring you there
once, twice, a hundred times
to the first turbulence of a
flight you are onboard from the
very start, and like that tedious
twenty-two hours to america
like the cousins who followed
the eldest, coolest brother up
hanging on an escalator track
turbulences come one, another
until the odyssey sews to a close
along with your shredded dreams
your corrupted perceptions, your
wrinkles, your bruised, weary heart
which would thus lay within your
burnt, soulless corpse

the night consisted of me hinting at the presence of a guy
a guy i really like, a guy whose name
like a reverie, i could not bring myself to utter

i talked about everything because i do not care
i do not care about you, your enamoured face, your
saccharine words, instead i batted them away
as if they were unwanted flies harassing a dim light
of which they are enraptured by, devotedly yet
foolishly

by the end of the night i had grown tired of entertaining
the ghost of the guy whose name i could not utter
of glimmering gutlessly at my blatant apathy
of being a subject of novelty

you were the kid, strung on by a piece of nothing
and i was the power-bearer, merciless in
faithless speeches, indulgent in frivolousness
so i halted the meet, streamed mindlessly towards
a place where i renounced my false interest
my douchebaggery, then proceeded to wipe off
the kiss you'd left on my unwitting, unwelcoming lips

i do not like you, do not want traces of you to
envelope, overwhelm the traces of him on me
but i don't think they ever will

i) i write about 'love', 'romance' and 'intimacy'
like the bounce of pebbles on a train track
so perennially, so frivolously, so rashly
yet the only sentiment i am truly riveted by
is the hollow static of 'desire' -- one that
washes off with the grime from your body
at the end of a high

ii) everything is transient

iii) and so i think i am

she picks up the phone and dials
(a number she doesn't know by heart)

hello, she says, hello, he replies
(the man's voice is buoyant
upon her attention, resonant
with her affection
the corners of her maw twitch up
but only slightly, he cannot hear it
it is barred by the pride of her heart)

she continues, are you free to talk
i was waiting for you, he whispers
the faint breeze of his murmur enters
her body, lines the utopian passage
with a speed like that of cigarette smoke
(the air in her lungs turns nonexistent)

so she speaks, he listens with hushed
wind at the back of his chords
cracks pepper the tone of her speech
and she stumbles on the unexacting words
(but he thinks that it is the most tragically
beautiful sound in the world, and he
conceals the itch circling his palm
the dullness chilling down his spine)

hours later, the rant is a conversation
about medium rare steaks, apple tarts
and that old man in a red dress dancing
down the shady street they were once at

they hang up the devices smothered to
the side of their mirth, fluently
(irresolutely)
they peeled them off their ears and
laid them down on their shivering chests
(are they breathing, are they not)
they go to separate diners with that
extra bounce in their step, and a
daze in their eyes

the next time they convene
it will be as if nothing had transpired
in memory, there were no tears
no faint yelling in the background as
they utter their mutual condolences
none but the quiet, unsaid melancholy
of 'you', 'me'
of 'us'

my little girl, she is sitting by the steps
in a white dress stained with the taint of
her own despair

i drive towards her clawing at her skin
she says, daddy, the itch is staying
it won't go away
and the blood drips as tears from her eyes
painting her white dress with a more blatant
plague

his fingertips as wild sparklers
his palms, wads of soft cotton
and the plateaus of his toiled finger beds
so his grasps -- stray, muddled, unintended
like paint swashes glazing my frigid worn skin
realeasing undue quivers down my delicate chine