by Paresh Tiwari
It’s like in the words left unspoken,
scabbing over a bruised lip
in the cold November breeze.
She would watch with amazement,
as the waves crash over
the boulders and retreat.
She would follow the evening crow
on its flight into the bleeding sky,
and recite cheesy poetry laughing to herself.
She would jump into puddles,
sing aloud in the overflowing local trains.
She would leave her hair open for the wind,
and chase dragonflies over a field of pale yellow grass.
She would swing pebbles
on the mango trees
and point out birds that I had never known before.
She was young, almost too young.
She wore nothing to bed
and cried in movies I found corny.
“We would stay together forever.”
she would say one night after a fuck and a smoke.
That night those words bounced off
the pale sterile walls of the motel,
screaming back to me
over and over,
louder and louder …
“When one is eighteen, forever seems like a very short time.”
For me, I had known many of them before…
