Some days

feel like hallucination
-yours,
which you transferred into my head.

Ms Dolly Douglas

Today,
I remember looking up from
the History of the English Language
and wondering
if that pink lipstick
ever got smudged,
if the end of that sari
nestling on your nape
was ever let down
to reveal
a cleavage
if that fragile figure
had any strength
at all
and if those
large pools of eyes
ever became more
than just shifts
over faces
in the classroom.

The memory is intact

You were on the pyre-
rivers and mountains
away from home,
just like ajee had been.

They forgot her name
when they put her on the pyre.

Today,
I only remember
your blue silk sari.

i lift

my face again
toward the sky
just as it begins to land on my face

you have been
hot stinging drops
sometimes

sometimes
a spray of needles
landing
where you grazed it open

i lift my face
again
today

fall like silence

let me unbelong, too

Rain, again

crushed my solitude all night

piercing it
with words
that were yours

I wonder

what would happen
if this thing called
love
really existed

Afraid

of afternoons that drag
of nights that magnify fears
of mornings that begin a repetition
                        of the entire cycle

the bell jar

There's just so much the shrink knows about you.
Only as much as you divulge.
Rest,
you can compress and box up in tightly shut containers
to blow open
only when you need them to knock you back to life.
Keep the lid tightly shut on it for now.