The morning after the clock struck 12
The bed with sheets crumpled
Pillows unsettled
Felt larger than ever
Letting out a loud yawn
My arms outstretched for yours
your arms
Tired from being so exquisite
Strands of hair tingling your face
Wrists closed as unconsciously and tightly as a child holding onto their favorite sweet
The gnawing hollowness in my heart
The silence so chilling
The fragrance of your sandalwood mist still levitating from last night
The half-used Vaseline gel that you put so hastily on chapped lips
The hair clip clenched tightly into your hair
you slammed the door shut with laptop in hand and a pack of cigarettes in the other
Your body has perished
But your hand stroking my hair as I wake up
Your hands on the coffee grinder
The ones that made the most decadent pancakes
The ones that put out milk for the cats
Those hands I still feel
Those hands I can still see
The tightest seatbelt I would have strapped across your shirt
Built the sturdiest helmet
Bought the best combat boots for you to tread on the slippery edges of tragedy
for those hands could have still been feeding the cats
But now I buy Mogra instead
For us to put in each other’s hair after dinner
Your Mogra I place carefully alongside your comb, for them to acquaint
And for them to bond in their futility
The mirror you would gaze at so adoringly
Now splintered and scattered across the floor
I carefully sweep the shards
For those shards are the remnants of your smile
I recover old bits of poetry scribbled on discarded packages
The ink smudged towards the end of the line
I can’t recall if it was from
Your tears or mine
The seat covers in the car are torn and scratched
And your ring
A mix of moonstone and pearl
Is lying lonely at the foot of the seat
How relentless would have been the brute
For your food is still half-eaten
And the music still playing on your phone
I cross the park where your favorite lilies grew
All of them wilted now
I hear you calling me when you would spot a chartreuse one
“These are so rare !” you’d say
The way you would lean over them and caress three petals exactly and stand up
Dusting your pants so clumsily, you would run towards me
Your hair playing more carelessly than you
And your hands running ahead of you
The lilies were shot
And the birds absconded
the trees shrieked
And the water sobs
For there is nobody to splash their feet
And run to the lilies
How many doors did you lock?
How many knives did you stab
Till I returned
With fresh apples and new notebooks in hand
And saw
That the ring would never be worn again
The sun would never play with your curtains again
And your plants would smirk at me
the pancakes would never taste the same
I will never hear you sleep talk again
the vaseline would dry out
And the child’s toffee would drop on the floor
