In Between - One Smile Back, Remember This

Short Sips of A Long Drink

1.
The night is drenched with
unfinished dreams.
There is a fat orange moon
holding dominion in the phantasmic sky.
And the stars shine in soft supplication to him.

A night flower blooms -

there is a chasm in the darkness
a deepening of the languor that
arrests my submissive soul -

 

 

2.
I have to write you a story
of the third house on the left side of my street.
It's protected fiercely by
azaleas and marigolds
and the grass boasts immaculate
chaos in the sunshine.
Sad, ragged curtains peek out timidly from
the unwashed windows on the first floor
the faded rose pattern on it speak pensively -

But I will save that for a molten afternoon and an acquiescent ear.

 

 

3.
Forever demands a wrathful reckoning
and I have no truths to tell.
You are so glorious in your surety of the universe
So convinced that all doors have keys
what if I showed you one path that led past
destiny and settled somewhere behind a
door built for the entire purpose of remaining closed.

 

 

4.
My streets are long stretches
of cobbled grandeur.
I stumble in the footsteps
of calamitous pirates
who stole the songs from the cowrie shells.

 

 

5.
I sit cross legged on my downy sheets
enraptured by the night
Eolian kisses grace my inky fingers
I pour myself into you
through these words,
I gift you with slivers of my soul
they carol in the midst of the jangled syllables.

 

6.
I am always saying goodbye
a farewell to you, beloved
That is my complaint to the universe.
I am composed entirely of goodbyes.

 

 

7.
And so,
the emptiness spreads.

 

 

8.
I spent the better part of my Sunday morning
in a teacup,
pondering the crevices in my battered heart
Weary and worn
an old leather shoe, with brown crease marks on the sides
and a scuffed tongue

My thoughts are a dusty china blue.

I am an afternoon under a mango tree
I am this and that too.

I wonder if butterflies ever wish to
return into their cocoons.