I don’t crave your hands
if they carry
leftover heat —
touch me only
if your fingerprints
have forgotten
everybody else.

-

My mouth full of her river,
lungs craving breath,
soul somewhere
beneath her thighs.

-

A leaking bus stop,
one broken light,
and her head resting on my soaked shoulder —
I have lived richer nights in cheaper places.

We kissed beneath the plastic roof
of a roadside tea stall.
Steam, rain, and her breath —
that’s all I remember.

-

Afternoon sins

-

We used to make
clay dolls in summer;
She, with skilled fingers,
I, with clumsy hope;
She always moulded the woman strong,
and infirm the man.

Even then, her grief had form.

-

Her diary pages
filled with recipes,
and scribbled lines like—
"Don’t forget: he loved sugar in tea."
"Fold his shirts with care, he liked them crisp."

She always wrote love in past tense.
Maybe that was the only way she could keep it.

-

The Smell of Rain on Her Pillow

That evening, the rain had arrived earlier than the forecast. It wasn't a drizzle—it was the kind that knows your wounds and washes them without permission. I sat by the window, not watching the downpour, but the spot where her head once rested on the pillow. It still bore the shape of her absence.

-

In her attic,
there was this old iron chest;
tied tight with jute rope,
it held letters,
bus tickets, cards,
chocolate wrappers, and dry flowers.

She opened it every winter, she once said.
I dared not ask why.

-

After she left, they grew louder—
Like echoes chasing shadows.
When she left, I wore them once.
They didn’t jangled the same.

Her Anklets
She never removed them—not in sleep,
not in sorrow.
Their sound meant
she was near.

-

There is a room in me
where time does not move.
It reeks of unopened letters,
unanswered questions,
and echoes of footsteps
that never returned.
sometimes,
i find myself sweeping the floor—
not to clean,
but to feel something
that still belongs to me.

even if it’s dust.

-