dear darling, let us sleep

I need a break, and I'm sure you do too —

let's get two movie tickets,

some random film

that becomes white noise.

We'll sit in the corner, in the dark,

no words between us,

just rest our heads, close our eyes,

your head on my shoulder, or mine on yours.

Anonymous in the world.

This evening at Lalbhag

 

dear darling

Not everyone who wears grey is you.

I have walked past grey walls,

grey skies, grey strangers —

and felt nothing.

dear body

Dear body

You are what I got

You have done a lot

Taken care of me

Bear with me

I am learning to 

love you back

Doddappa

 Doddappa

Wincing in pain
from a cancer that had eaten his innards,
Doddappa noticed I had no watch.

I haven't given you anything, he said —
forgetting the vow he took
to raise my father,
a child born posthumously.

A commitment to devote to a family
he inherited at sixteen.
From poverty to two PhDs,
a bachelor running a family —
you gave your all.

We sat in silence,
me holding his hand,
him struggling to sit,
comforting words locked in me.

He was soon gone

Poem Writing Prompt of the day - Write about something you almost said - but didn't.

Mine

 Mine

No matter what happens,
I still love you.
I still respect you.

What happened?
I needed your help —
I couldn't do without it —
and that placed weight in your hands,
pressed pressure into friendship,
and now you hate me.

No matter what,
I love you.
I am grateful for you.
This is my truth.

Believe what you need to.
My truth is mine.
My love is mine —
all mine.

Nothing in the world belongs to me
but my love.

Dear Darling, Like a whirlpool

 Like a whirlpool

in a peaceful river —
people's stories, their whispers
can churn any still connection.

And through this
I found the transient nature of love.

You can love someone
from the depths of your heart.
But if their glasses are clouded,
they will see only
what they want to see.

Dear Darling, what the eyes hold...

 What the Eyes Hold

The sun shone bright —
I closed my eyes.
There you were,
resplendent
in the dark.

dear darling, if I look...

If I look, I will find someone —
no doubt about it.

But how will anyone
love me
like you have loved me?
How will anyone love me
Like you have loved me?

Someone will look at you
with loving eyes —
Someone, surely, will.

But alas —
you will never know
how you appear
in mine.

Only almost rich!

You have everything — a loving family, admirers who orbit you, 

a kind heart, a handsome face, 

people who look up to you like you are something worth becoming.

You have everything. You are rich. Well, almost.

There is one thing you don't have.

You will never know how you appear to my eyes —

 and that, that is mine to keep. 

A gem I tuck into the soft of my heart, into the quiet of my eyes, 

held where no one can ask for it and nothing can take it.

There —

in all your richness, surrounded by everything a life can hold —

alas, you are only almost rich.

- Dee

 I cannot say when I fell in love with you —

was it that first time, from the big window near the steps,

the light falling just so,

and you, standing there,

not knowing you were being seen?

When our eyes met,

did you feel it too —

that small arrested moment,

the world pausing

mid-breath,

something unnamed

passing between us

like weather?

Or was it the slow accumulation of days — 

the passing, the passing, the passing by, 

until you were no longer 

someone I saw but someone I carried?

You are in my essence now. 

Every other man feels paraya to me — foreign, elsewhere, not-you — and you are mine, I know it, the way the body knows its own wound,

but you are far. So far that mine is just a word I hold in an empty hand.