
The Randomness of Intimacy
By Nishi Chawla
You call my voice out from the caves of my sleep,
Fixated with hymns of longing, you bring them
Alive with what seems like something anticipated,
Remembered. A stab somewhere.
Your graph charts a nice loop
Chaos, possibilities of a lotus wilting,
Sobbing, my left knee throbs every time you
Go into the sullen trenches of self-created mess
The knee hurting, caught up in bittersweet loss.
I weep at my freedom, stare at street lights,
As the city drenches the burnished tulips, drip
With nostalgia dressings. Unable to sense the
Water that surges. The inner core seems broken.
When I smell the bottom rung of my
Thoughts, they seem to look at me with
A peculiar sense of satisfaction. Untouched,
As though our lips have met.
At various times when our bodies locked,
The sunlight stole the pleasure; exchanged
It with a musty smell from which we
Shrank. Congealed by our ardor.
Just the naked smell of our hearts,
That had lost its grip on forgotten
Hooks, driven by the silent urge
To flow along.
Pleasure is an unsightly term,
Hardened by the high heat of endless
Cycles of repetition, exposed by
Our leaking lithesome fuels.
I sometimes rage, an outrage,
My voice gets sucked up, sinks
Into the shadows of your own fire,
We jostle, like burning peacocks.
The skies do not grow bigger, hearing
Us howl; only hesitate, behind giant
Shoals of grey clouds that whimper,
Glow pale red. Risk their chances.
As I careen over your sternum, weigh
My own, glance up the doorstep of your
Ageing eyes, struggle to free you of my
Pain, like a trashcan rolling, loud.
Sealed tight within your scalped mind,
Overhead pitching and jostling, the skies
Tug at, and you. Then they tumble over,
Secure our raw boned kisses. Ripped.
Like the blue feathers tugging, free
Like the last leaves that feel the chill
Air, feel the sparkle, the hard pull.
Beyond the fire, of you.
Listening to hard calls of desire,
The tongue is worn down, mouths
Full of blistered grace, letting go
Would be a sin, as the skies cower.

Dr Nishi Chawla is an academic, a writer and a filmmaker. Nishi Chawla has published ten plays, two novels, and seven collections of poetry. She has also written and directed four award winning art house feature films. She has also co-edited two global anthologies of poetry published by Penguin Random House: 'Greening the Earth' and 'Singing in the Dark.'