by Lalitha Gouri
Lalitha Gouri’s poem speaks of love of a universal kind that is usually forgotten in the daily grind of life. This love remains hidden and unaware of its presence within us, we look for it outside of us. But there are moments when it is whispered to us and we realise its strength. When we do, what lay buried inside bursts free.
I am so full of you; so full that I fail to see
Where I end, and you begin.
Do we need boundaries, for you and me?
You begin in me and I end in you
Or as they say, vice versa.
I didn’t know, neither did you.
And for long we played hide and seek
In a jumbled sphere of lies and truths.
All I know for good is the unseating
Charm of you that barely lets
My mind sit, let alone rest.
Ever bursting to break free
Of the confines of thought
You pass through me in unprepared hour,
As sure as a shiver in the spine,
As searing as the burnt end of a butt.
Time zones rise and set in us.
It’s perpetual rush in the daily commute
In our land of wasted dreams.
We transmit fragments of desire
In confused emojis and broken words,
That night and day fail to fill the void
Of rising heartbeats and throbbing lips.
And we learn to divide, and divide again
Across the one thousand chores
Whatever little is left in us whole.
Days pass when you are powerless
To touch me in a message of love,
Then you come forth, and say love
And love, that archaic word
In an intelligent air of short impulses
Echoes with clichés of ideal love.
My ears that turned deaf hurt to
Pick up the notes of a whispered voice.
In the trail of the silence that died,
A long-buried part of me resurrects
In a blind dance of seasons, and
All that you had left in me,
All that you let die in me,
All that you let grow in me,
Burst forth to fill a breathless gasp
And in that gush, I find you,
I find you, in me.
Lalitha Gouri is a freelance writer and academic researcher. She grew up in Kerala and currently lives and works in Melbourne, Australia.
