AND I CANNOT READ YOUR SMILE

-Aditya Singh

I do not know where it starts
What muscle I need to tug
What neuron I need to fire.
I thought it’d be like reading a metaphor,
Or a simile,
Or maybe an essay by some expert,
Who knows you.
But words keep failing me as well.
With crow’s legs,
Gathering around your closed eyes,
I wonder how do you see
When blind.
I guess smiling is forgetting the world,
For that long nanosecond darkness.
And in the vacuum of your laugh,
You tie your burning threads of love.
And I cannot read your smile,
But I know where it ends.
It ends where I begin.

Happiness is not moments in pearls,
You collect in a string around your neck,
To hang yourself from.
You play with it.
I tried my best,
But I guess my best was not good enough for anyone.

And I cannot catch your tears,
For I do not know,
Where do the tears go?

​

They disappear like your words,
Which say so many things,
But mean nothing.
I thought it’d be like catching a ball,
Or holding onto them,
Tightly to my chest,
Till I may use them.
I always was bad at catching,
And even soap slips away from my hand.
I see them disappear,
Feelings with no memories to call home,
Memories with no feelings, burdensome as stones
Like tears in the rain.
In a rain where I made you stand,
So I do not have to see them.
You still make me taste them.
And I cannot catch you tears,
For I have to catch my own.
I cannot save us both,
I cannot save everyone.

Loneliness is not an absence of people.
It is a presence of people,
Who cannot see,
Or hear.
My phone does not ring anymore,
I put up a new ringtone.
I hope its only your data plan that’s empty.

And it is difficult to love,
It is difficult to love.

​

I cannot feel their love,
No more than I can feel their orgasms.
There is too much of me,
There is too much of me.
And it’s alright.
It’ll become alright.
In my coldness,
In my warmth.
Its ok to be saved by someone else.
Some of us need a saviour.
The rest have already found theirs.
And it is difficult to love,
But it’s not impossible.

I still remember that phantom touch,
Me with warmth in a dream,
And you weren’t there.
No one has ever touched me like that.
No one will look at me.
The childish tantrum has ended.