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when the telephone rang
at six in the morning
four days before Christmas Eve
   I knew
things were not right

they told me
   my father had died
   at three in the morning
   and would I please come by
   arrange for the burial
   and collect his belongings
at the senior citizens home
where he had spent
the last four years
of his life

they had rested him nicely
he looked at peace
I kissed him on his forehead
   like I always had
   at the end of my visits
and cast a last long look at his figure
   before the body would be taken away

    and suddenly I noticed
       how big his hands were
    they’d never seemed so prominent before

as if in death they sent me a reminder
of how much he had loved his hands
   for work   for play  for sports
   for fight and for survival
   to point and to gesticulate
      they held me as a baby and
         some times
      slapped me as a child
   they repaired toys   split wood
   built sheds   drove cars and motor bikes
   were patient and precise
   caressed and soothed and loved

they were his life
they held his world

my father’s hands
It took me 5 years to pen this first verse about my father's death ... difficult...
 Sep 2015 Vamika Sinha
Wednesday

The way the cigarette smoke seemed to
hesitate in the wind of the half opened car window.
It floated out of your lips in small O's and seemed to linger
on your mouth for a fraction of a second before dissipating into the air.

2.
The glint in your eye as you pushed yourself into me,
my hands wrapped around your tan arms,
pressing white into the hard flesh.
The gasp and the way your hands moved to grip mine,
your lips at my neck,
pulling my hair as it tosses around in your sheets.
The spit, the lack of love, the lack of emotion.
The lust.

3.
The smell of you sauteing onions,
the streetlights buzzing outside your window,
the skulls on the sill illuminated with the glow.
The way the alcohol spills on your hardwood floor
and the way my eyes follow you.
The way my mouth waters for something that can not be fed.
 Sep 2015 Vamika Sinha
Gaye
I sit and stink,
After cups of tea, conversations and melancholy
The sweat is salty, an armpit attached to sentences-
Ondaatje and the cat, Abramovic and tears,
The hollow room and my single window that ached
The smell and the grey torn shirt never got *****.

I sit and stink,
Desperate to walk, talk and get out of newspapers
Scratch rich names out of the walls and retreat
To untie the curly locks and let them breathe.
A phone thrown at one corner and emails unread
The world- a closed book with no pages.

I sit and stink,
Jeans pulled down to a wet floor
European closet and the yellow sparky lights,
Imagination erupted, there was no room to escape.
I pencilled graphs, penned letters and painted snakes
Self-portrait, Van gogh and a black and white me.

I sit and stink,
A friend, the jack and the brick house
Dosa with ghee served for the jarred tilapias,
They are all memories. Unremembered-
Like running races and the temple music system.
I wrote them down neatly, in a rectangle, they leaked.

I sit and stink,
An unfamiliar face in a place with no power
Glenfarclas, smoke and Ra Ra Rasputin
She danced. He watched. Her collarbones broke.
He dug his nail, dirt at its corner, an unshaven facade
It was grave, full of pain, his face and his eyes.

I sit and stink,
A ****** body inside the same grey shirt
Scratching names next to the European closet
With the old song from the temple music system.
The unfamiliar face evoked all human senses
The body is yet to take a wash.
the map's in my jeans,
your hands the zip code

الخريطة في بلدي الجينز ،
يديك الرمز البريدي
 Sep 2015 Vamika Sinha
Z
9:06 PM.
 Sep 2015 Vamika Sinha
Z
"we're all just people with the same problems and different last names."
~Papa
 Sep 2015 Vamika Sinha
Kelsey
the average human
describes their heartbeat
as a thud-thud or a few
rough pats to the chest.

i fall asleep with my ear
pressed up against your
chest. all i can hear is the
echo of a captain yelling,
"let me sink...let me sink..."
i ask you how you would
describe your heartbeat,
you point to the ship
in the bottle mounted on
your father's bookshelf
& faintly say
"the glass bottle keeps the
ship from sinking, completely
blocking out the captain's wish
to learn how to breathe
underwater because air just
isn't doing its job with keeping
him alive."


your break up letter to me
went a little something like;

"you were built in the fire,
stop acting like you burn in it.
you were never made to be fragile,
you were never made to be my glass."


my plead for you to stay
went a little something like;

(20) Missed Calls

your final goodbye
went a little something like;

a thud thud to the pavement.

& my final goodbye was
cracking open a bottle on your
headstone & standing in the sea
with the water rising up to
my knees, with a small ship in
the palm of my hand, a dunk
underneath the tide & a faint
whisper, *"breathe."
 Sep 2015 Vamika Sinha
blankpoems
If I thought I was losing you I wouldn't beg you to stay
I'd say that when you breathe, I see stars because I imagine your heart inside your body pumping blood
to your veins and your lungs expanding and letting go and all I can think of is how I never want to be your lungs
because I could never let go of your air.

I'd tell you that your eyes put the northern lights to shame.
That I've been everywhere and nowhere feels more at home than
sitting on the curb of a street in a city I don't know with you by my side.

If I thought I was losing you I would tell you that I'm not one
for love poems, but the sound of you saying my name is enough to make me think of red roses and blue violets.
And that when you touch me the roses are blue and the violets are red
and everything painful inside my head doesn't matter.

If I thought you were going to leave I wouldn't ask you to stay,
I'd tell you that every word that comes from your mouth leaves me breathless;
That there are little caves in your body and I picked a temporary home in your larynx
so you could always feel me in the words you're nervous to say.

I'd let you know that my whole life I've been searching for myself,
and amidst the shadows I found your bright eyes, and I lost my senses there...
and found them as well.

I want to tell you that all I need is you and a record player.
That music runs through my veins, and right next to Every Grain of Sand
and my love for Bob Dylan, you're there.
Shining through my bloodstream, leading the way to my heart.

If I thought I was losing you, I wouldn't beg you to stay.
I'd say that you're the best and worst thing that has ever happened to my poetry.
That I find metaphors in the notches of your spine,
that I play them like a piano.
And most of all, above all these things,
I'd say darling don't go, I'll miss you.
We were beautiful children
And we grew up so brave,
We were touched by death and heartbreaks but we stayed just the same.

We listen to jazz all night and drink red wine,
Find ourselves adventure to pass the time,
We don't talk much about the pain we've felt inside,
No more bumps in the road,
Just enjoying the ride.

Our love is too strong to carry weight of what's gone,
We find peace in the sun,
And the belief of being young.

Love of mine in the world,
We are one in the same,
You can laugh while you're crying and be childish when you lose games,
We are fine, we are okay,
We are in love,
And our children someday will be just like us.
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