Like 587 spiders hanging over to avenge the death of one of theirs'.
Like 9630 steps missing the 10k mark.
Like 1760 days of the degree coming to an end.
Like everything that is almost perfect but not perfect.
Almost real but not real.
Almost lovely but not lovely.
I wish to almost see you someday
In almost the same city but not the same city
Almost with someone else but not someone else
I wish to almost scrape you away from my skin
Almost believe that this isn't an afterlife
Almost reverse the lapels of my breath
Almost scratch the walls
And almost still survive.-
On the flip side
I will boil some vocab
And steam an ice cream
To be served piping hot
With a pang of disbelief
I will fold bedsheets
With ghee indeed
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On such days when my arms turn into yours rocking me to sleep at 3 a.m., feet turn into branches coiling themselves around each other forming a nest to hide inside. A nest not too tightly knit to choke me like a Covid patient, not too loose to avoid a touch like a measles one. Small brittle locks scattered over the forehead reaching out to kiss the eyes, failing miserably sway like the loose bedsheet threads on the sides peeping under the bed.
On such days i recall summoning the sea, the moon, the mountains, the Gods to ease if not end it all. i don't know who among them actually can, collectively or individually. I now let your limbs attached to my body dig holes in the flesh to let the time escape, expand and collapse onto us.-
Of the same degree
As helplessness of a flying lizard
Or of the flying fox
Blinded by its summersaults
The extreme efforts of a kangaroo hop
Or a sloth's unconditional walk
Perhaps of an octopus donating his extra hearts
Is my intense desire to swim to you
If i start walking today, and the time stops
Hope to reach by the end of lifelong.
How funny it is that I have run out
Of human metaphors
Or an emote that can express at par
From the depth of a lyrical lagoon
I rest the case in the lap of a nursery rhyme
For animals' lack far-sightedness
And thus can embark on an infinite war.-
Cutting cuticles from crevices
Cleaning clots from cotton balls
Characterizing candid catastrophe
Causing curable chosen carves
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