These are not the same lips you once kissed
These are barren; they form only sad words.
You never laid your hand upon these cheeks
Hollow, they belong to a different girl,
Into these grey eyes you never gazed
They are empty and some throbbing hurt
Lies in this skin you never knew.
Since you I am harder, my world turned
And this body never lay with yours:
It contains lessons previously unlearned
You never saw this tough smile, surely
Because it is for you that it burns;
The stars in my mind you once knew
Were snuffed out when you spurned
The love which only you ever felt; now I
Have died, my poetic murmurings unheard.
I walked in a corpse never touched by
Your purity, who is this girl
You never met: phoenix-born from our
Ashes; you wouldn't even recognise her.


*© Tara India.