A half burnt smoke never tastes the same
As an un-lit cigarette.
It’s the same with love.

We can never tumble back in time to;
Happy nights nuzzling in bed,
Clandestine kisses on the dock at midnight,
Drinking in glorious sunsets and city lights.
As if we could ever pretend that the world was perfect.

We can never dance back into;
Long car rides to Victoria,
Drunk laughs in the rain,
Late night cuddles on the couch
Playing video games to our hearts content.

In all honesty, I don’t need to live in the past
I like smoking full cigarettes to make them last.

Time is a human construct.
It will spill numbers on the floor,
Whilst it slips its fragile hands around your throat.
Choking you out,
Until breathing becomes more of a chore than reality.
Until it feels like you’re drowning from the carbon dioxide swimming in your veins.

The clock is the home that stutters away when you get to close.
It’s the boy who tells you he loves you,
And then never calls.
It’s the sound of your ribs snapping in half,
Simultaneously filling your lungs with ambrosia.
So that when you take your final breath,
Time will be there to remind you that no matter what,
You were never ******* enough nor ever really there.

Time is the intruder that breaks in
Steals your youth, your drive, your ******* life.
Erasing you slowly,
As I’ve done to every minute since I saw the universe in your eyes.

But, god, what would we do without time,
How would we subsist without measuring cosmos in our hands?
How am I supposed to live without the warmth of your body next to mine?

I carry a coat
Filled with my past
Its has old notes
Scrawled across like signatures on a cast

I have spirits living in the pockets
Demons sinking in through moth eaten holes
They whisper your name in sonnets
Convey and disclose

This cloak
Is ancient
Is heavy
The apparitions do nothing but reminisce

Mummi despised
wearing clothing belonging to the deceased
“It is bad luck to not let bhoots subside”
She spoke at me
Rather than directly to her beti
But what of the ghosts I am forced to wear mother?
When will they leave?

6 weeks
and I still want to wash my body
In bleach.
Go over each inch,
With a bristle brush.
Watch my skin bleed.
Because no matter what I do
I can not get the taste of him
Out of my mouth,
Get rid of feeling
Him
Inside me.

Fingers touching my throat
My lips on his neck
I can't get rid of it.

Fifty one days
My soul is still too soft
Too soluble
For his liking.
My liquid gold
Can not fill the cracks in his soul
The jagged edges of his ribs.

Instead it slides down his body
My tongue follows
drip
     drip
          drip
We cool on uneven stones

Your mouth fumbles
When you call me baby
The word is foreign.
You are afraid.
A mouse caught in the gaze of a snake.
Will it slice your tongue if you say it too hard?
Or too soft?

It rolls up your throat
Pushes past your teeth with great strength
Awkward and sounding slightly out of breath
You mumble it between "hey' and "how are you"
Squished and small
Like it doesn't deserve recognition or even its own space.

You've wrapped it in fear
Hoping that if you say it nicely
Maybe somehow it will be less like a missile
Maybe this time it won't hurt.

It is exotic to that mouth of yours.
A rare commodity,
A precious rock we have to excavate
Our own romantic version of the sword in the stone

Everyone has an addiction.
Some, simpler than others.
Some, the worst things on earth.
But most of them,
Albeit all of them,
Are trying to numb something that tears them to shreds.

Sometimes when I miss someone
I feel it catch in my throat
Something between a whimper
More of a cough and a choke
Fireflies flutter in my pulmonary cavities
My ribs are the lantern
Caging my fatalities
As they burn from their expansions.
Igniting even the darkest of nights
They flicker off
One by one

The galaxy
The aurora borealis
The deep sea
It's what she's always been

I was a page in your book of life.
You were a whole chapter in mine.

One day,
I will write a book
He'll claim it is about him
“Why couldn't you get over me?”
“Why are you still stuck in the past? This was years (months, days, minutes) ago”.

I’ll say it's about how you made me feel,
How you left me.
How you broke me,
Then made me pick up the pieces.
How you ****** me,
Told me you loved me.
Choked identical words out of me.
Deserted me.

I wrote a book about loving someone despite everything he had done to me.
Encompassing me
Hurting me.
Not him.

My body still searches for you
In a sea of bedsheets and stuffed animals.

I try to mimic the warmth of your arms around me.
I, once again, fail miserably...
Just like I did when you packed up and left.

My hands sleepily clasp at nothingness.
I am half asleep,
Just at the stage before waking up,
Desperately trying to find any semblance of you.

I was always told my insomnia was the reason for my lack of rest.
But what do we call it when I can not fall asleep without you beside me?

257 days.
For the first time,
I don't want to shower him off my skin.

No need to scrub;
Your lips leaving delicate traces,
Your hands entangled in my hair,

No need to rinse
Feeling you,
Sending shocks down my spine
Fingers brushing against skin
Electric impulses

No need to wash the memories of;
Bodies intwined
Kissing shoulders and sternums
(whatever has been left exposed)

The creak of a door,
A sliver of light
Slips and illuminates the evergreen tops.

A sigh of relief echoes between our two walls.
I hear the flick of a lighter.
An orange glow appears.
Floating about an arms length away from a dark shadow mostly hidden
behind the evergreens i always complain of.

We end up mimicking each others actions
Swimmers in a line,
Diving in at the same time.
Synchronizing the timing of raising
our separate cigarettes to
our separate lips,

It’s a small solace,
Two strangers, simultaneously trying to **** themselves just a bit quicker
The only form of intimacy we know at this point in life.

Ash, take a drag, ash, take a drag
Rinse and repeat
The wash cycle is almost over
We puff away together
Until one of us tires or hits the ****.

I once again, hear;
The creak of a door,
A sliver of light illuminates the tight knit needles.
I hear a gentle slam,
In his own way, a goodnight

Maybe the way the curve of your spine fits into me is an indication
of how the earth meets the sea.
Frothing, frigid and free

Maybe the way our lips convene is an illustration
of a star being born
Colliding, rising, expanding
With every breath we whisper to each other
the wind caresses the mountains in such delicate manners

Maybe the way our eyes meet
searching for a long lost landmark
{Home at last,
or at least until tomorrow}
reveal the discovery of deeper mysteries
Cold, comforting, coalescent

Maybe the simplest brush of skin
brings earthquakes to our veins
Seeped with unspoken words
warmth and peril rolled in one

Maybe, just maybe, the first ****** between two lovers
is the modern tsunami,
a flood of pleasure, teeming with emotions and laughter

The rain that lulls us to sleep
is the same as the water that cascades down cracks and cliffs
Racing to meet her soulmate,
Salt water
Fresh water
Two hearts beat in solidarity
Melting one into the other
Tongue on tongue
Fingertip to fingertip

Maybe the way we started is the way we end,
with nothing but empty space and deafening silence.

Do you want to **** yourself,
or are you just bored?

My hands trace rivers down his back
Soft silt streambeds
My tongue follows the waveforms of his hips
Warm skin with lazy currents
My ears feel your heartbeat resonate in your chest
Strong swells crash into stone cliffs
My lips taste honey and saltwater dripping from yours
A mix of dalliance and mischief
Our bodies meld into sea foam

we explored
listened to rain on his windshield
watched the waves crash

when he drove me home
he held my hand
i kissed him at all the red lights

He has constellations on his back
A galaxy of freckles and moles.
They map out our journey,
Star-crossed lovers forever.

He talks about the night sky.
Black holes and satellites and Jupiter’s various moons.
Awe glows on his face
His eyes dance.

Stardust covers every inch of him.
He speaks in theoretics and “what if’s”
A nebula waiting -

He does not realize,
He is the universe
The universe is him.

what my ancestors gave me

(the curves of my body
the curls in my hair
the swell of my *******
the wetness between my legs)

was not meant to be colonized.

Our talks of the sunset
Were poems themselves

really hot days
remind me of my home

the one across the sea
with mangos ripe on the vine
and yellowed grass

if I close my eyes,
i can almost taste the dust in the air
feel the warm embrace of my family members
that i miss so dearly
smell the petrichor off the hot cement floor after a fresh monsoon rain

time zones apart feel like worlds apart
and they are
when your family is dying
and there is no way to comfort your aunt
because her husband is taking his last breaths

there was no chance for her to say goodbye
to her father, to her husband,
both lay in hospitals
continents apart
isolated, but not unloved
both gone, not even a month apart

the borders have been closed for i don’t even know how long
there is no physical way for us, let alone her own children, to be present
all we do is wait

most of my memories are spent on
drinking chai on the veranda
or dancing in the rain with Papa
playing holi with pails of water mixed with “gulal” and water pistols.
seeing the smiles of all my family members,
together once again.

really hot days
remind me of my home
smoke from the wildfires mimics the smog in the air
the sun - a red ball in the grey sky
if i shut my eyes real tight
i can still get a glimpse of us on the rooftop, celebrating life.

I was the anomaly.

the reason she couldn’t have
a white picket fence,
two kids with straight a’s,
a loving husband.

I was the reason
life kept going to ****.

Sometimes,
I find myself doing something
So minuscule
So mundane
That somehow my mind wanders to him
And I feel my heart break
A freshly cracked egg,
Just right for breakfast

he
ripped my skirt off my thighs
my breath from my lungs
my virginity, a prize

rings caught on cheekbones
the sound of sighs
air filled with moans

lights reflecting of our skin
his horns catch glimmers
but only spread shadows

such a deadly sin
a stone cold killer
*** with the devil

Did I tell you that my lungs burned the first time you told me you didn’t love me?
It was like my first taste of a cigarette,
Except your words never left me any kind of head rush.
My blood was replaced with liquid gold,
When I first yelled “*******” at the top of my lungs.
My veins encased with silver with every step I took.

The boiling point of gold and silver are both well over two thousand degrees celsius.
I swear that night I blistered out of my own skin,
Cauterized my own heart,
To never feel the pain of something so deep.

My hands were scorched with how much time I had spent,
Attending to your needs and pushing my own away.
My eyes begged for relief.
Every inch of skin you had ever touched continued to ignite long after you’d left.

And so in a final desperate attempt,
I say farewell,
To what we once had.
This is my goodbye,
The letting go of all my charred remains.

Lewis Mundt wrote about how people were made of 72.8% water,
To this day I believe,
I was 72.8% lava the night we said we’d never be.

I need someone;
Who will speak prayers between my legs
Recite “Our Father” on my skin
Whisper “Hail Mary”s along with their tongue
Let me turn water into wine
Two lovers to one.

Stuffed the words you said
Down my throat;
Followed quickly by the flick of tongue,
Swallowed the words you said,
Dogged with cigarette smoke,
In hopes,
You meant them.

I have spent eternity searching for the red string that ties us
Finger to finger,
Atom to atom.
Deeper than Mariana's trench
Higher than the atmosphere

Our love was something they told stories of
Too young to understand what heartbreak could ever be.
Made songs about the yearning we felt for one another
It was a fairytale.
A bedtime story.

My dad used to tell me
About dinosaurs and fables and kingdoms
All stuff that I left once I fell asleep
but
I still don't know if I dreamt our fate up
if we ever existed;
in the same vicinity ,
in the same lifetime,
in the same time frame.

Did i imagine the affection you reciprocated?
Or was what my father taught me true?
Getting too close would have it's consequences
He, the sun
I, foolish Icarus
Plunging head first into the sea
no lifeboat in sight.

I remember that night
The glow of lights softened the edges

The way you held my hand
I told you I didn't dance

Sneaking kisses because we knew
We couldn't
We shouldn't
We didn't need to fall back into the old
When this exact moment was meant to move forward

The sound of your voice trinkled over the music
I think those were my favourite notes that night

I could hear your words in my ear
Tantalizing and teasing
Your hands weaving electricity into my skin
Making me swear up and down;
if this ever ended..
For once i had given it my all.
Even if we ceased to exist to each other

Perhaps..
Our atoms were in the same vicinity when the universe was created;
how lucky are we to, once again, cross paths.
once again,
To brush our atoms
One against the other,
feel the familiarity of "oh we've met before".
The universe has fallen into place many times since I have glanced into your eyes
Alas, he takes my breathe away.

The
       mangoes
make an appearance
before the
                 monsoon...
so will you.

Sometimes,
My brain doesn’t understand how to get from
Point A to Point B
Without hitting Z, F, G, P
A symbiotic drum
Beating to our heartbeats

Sometimes,
My mind doesn’t know
How to count from one to ten
Without bringing twelve and ninety
To bubble up in between
It is a potion gone wrong in all honesty

I don’t go from being friends to acquaintances
Its all or nothing
Love and hate
Lust and disgust
There is no middle ground

Sometimes,
Thats the problem.

I,
The ship lost at sea.
Crashing waves and darkness surround me.

Him,
The north star.
Brighter than anyone I've ever seen

Our loneliness mingles on our tongues
It lingers on the warm spot you left beside me,
When you woke to leave
It shows face on the nights you aren't asleep next to me.

Our kisses are filled with paraphernalia we are too petrified to state.
Our touches hold promises that we can only fulfill.

The ocean and the night sky swallow our lights
Yet, somehow we still find each other.

I'm sorry that I can not swallow my tongue
To appease you
Gulp it whole and choke
To make you feel good

I'm sorry that my body trembles
When I think of your hands
Grasped tightly around my neck
At that point, you are in more control of me
Than I have ever been

The first time we kissed ,
Our teeth knocked together.
You told everyone
this little fact

But you didn't tell them
Of our stolen kisses
Alone in the dark.
Whispers of how we wanted each other,
Whilst drunk off of cheap liquor.

You didn't fill them in on
If you ever liked me or not.

You can not wish someone into existence.
You can not hope or pray or cry
someone into something they are not.
You can not sit there and wait for eternity,
For a glimpse,
Even just a glimmer,
Of who they used to be.

Before their demons capsized them.
The life raft splintered.
They floundered (alone)
Sunk to the bottom of their desires.

You can not scream or shout or talk someone into change.
To put down
the bottle, the needle, the blade,
You can not force someone into abstinence.
You can not beg for sobriety.

All you can do is;
Pack you bags,
Change your number
Get on a plane,
Let your mom and dad know your safe,
and
Run.