THE SADNESS OF CLOTHES.

III.

somewhere in the folds of this country, between its writhing flesh is history waiting to be uncovered. these streets reek of a love unspent, a love hidden in the hollow of palms, of bodies lingering after dark. every night, i am refused entry. every night I am left with an ache for all the names we will not know.

you cannot tell me that never in the painstakingly long history of this country, have there been two boys who have locked eyes with feverish devotion distorting their faces, who climbed banyan trees until the branches enveloped them and then let their hands wander. you cannot tell me that in this landscape filled with foliage that twists and turns with desire, in this landscape of dappled light and hidden embraces, there have never been girls who waited under marble balconies for each other, who awoke to dawn to meet their lovers in deserted monuments and then later, their ruins. you cannot tell me that this night spilling over decades has not seen my people sneak and huddle and hide and caress and melt into each other. 

you cannot tell me that any of this is new. i was not made in a lab, there must have been someone years ago who felt this way. there must have been girls who chased each other through fields, their love a shadow just out of reach. there must have been boys who sat quietly in the crook of forests, hands clasped, their love a breeze slicing through the silence. and if we go back longer, there must have been people who didn't hide. who loved in harsh sunlight just as unbashedly as they did at night. who let your hands touch their face and etch every feature into memory. where is this elusive memory now? under my bed perhaps, waiting for me to open the old rusted iron trunk so it can spill out onto the floor as consolation. behind this mirror, maybe. pinned to the ceiling that is battered by monsoon. someday, it will crack open and history will collapse into my hands, sheepish and naked.