Nandini Sahu
Is it fine with you, love, to live and negotiate
through the language of oblivion?
It’s a separate matter that
this is yet another love story for you.
And you can tell us, re-tell, re-tell more tales.
Some know parts of it, some not even a hint of it,
some compose their own editions of it.
Anyway,I remember the primary version of the tale–
that clouds froze in dark nights.
Despite your claim
that I took your story and turned it into
whatever I needed to.
Fair enough,to make the world contented
of late
you began to amend
a simpler, happier life for yourself.
Fair enough, love!
I am glorious.
Proud.
More proud.
Much more, tonight.
To love you is like going to
the battlefield.
One comes broken, bruised
from the battle, for sure.
Still I feel like a lepidopterist, who has
Gloriously peeved an unusual moth.
We couldn’t have been written out of the past, right?
I know that you know that I know.
The untold and the told, I know it all.
Predictable, comforting, heartening sorrows,
but trustworthy, consistent ones.
Tonight
my city is tranquil;
as if the city is having its meditation classes
as if we all are gleaming from our Yoga sessions.
Tonight
the sky is the woodland of stars.
I wonder,
is another world possible?
Ever? Ever?
Life failed me in a nebulous yet fundamental way.
Let me embrace what you have given me
like we embrace old friends;
let me deal with your gifts like
we handle old enemies.
Perhaps it’s raining in my head
perhaps it’s my survival strategy.
I know that you know that I know.
This is how it has always been
between you and me.
I made you so tall, I needed to,
in order to live life;
and thus, you always act
as if I owe you a thing or two.
We have been simultaneously
sweethearts and former sweethearts
siblings and former siblings
lovers and former lovers
friends and former friends.
When it comes to the matter of heart
we always have had
an implicit jungle of safety nets.
Your knowledge has made you pessimistic;
your intelligence, tough and callous.
You think too much and believe too little.
And love even less.
You are my salvation, you are my nemesis.
In you, I have been swimming through layers of love.
With you, the heart suffers like a grey pebble
in an accumulating stream
rolling down, always in motion.
I have been your beloved madcap.
You know why. I don’t need to tell.
I knew love, the macabre, would visit upon me.
So you did.
We knew that we knew that we knew.
And then the Judgment Day had been forestalled
a blessing received its place.
I wish life could be minus such determinations
and death minus such finality.
