the slow art of breathing bitter

Late Night Rain

The city sings in its flaws as the summer birds flap away

in the heat of the dying sun—walls of disgrace burn in ambiguity.

When the time comes,

and the beggar boys stop singing psalms—

We all rise and start again

like the midnight sun beneath your veins.

We bleed throughout,

and now lie like the corpse

we have been buried under the snow years before.

Lustrous rage of stormy deaths.

Undying love lingers in the smell of your hair;

A longing—salty and bitter—through my blue fingertips.

The whitewashed walls rewrite histories

of overvalued kings that fed in molten gold.

Plastic flowers never lose their colors in the rain.

I want a cold shower

to wash away everything—every single thing.

The lavenders in your hands tickle my feet.

I remember liking them the first time

we kissed under the ocean sky.

But today, forgiveness seems too raw to be given—

not everything seems to die abruptly at seventeen, darling.

The blues waves sweep away the shades of marigold.

And suddenly, I'm maroon

in summer love—I'm missing you, dear.

I can't risk and help myself again;

It's hard not to cry in the dying time.

The cherry lights growl at my door.

I could feel your lips on mine—fleeting in misery.

It's raining harder at the late night—stone-blind lovers stash their blue secrets.

Everything's violet and muffled. "How's life, friend?"

I'm trying hard to save myself from not being myself.

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A/N: A click on the star for the dejected narrator :)

© April 14, 2023. Sreeja Naskar.