Love Note for Druids

It began with: a house is not

space, it is a series. Sometimes

looking for you I enter one of the

images, it involves a flat coir

mattress, glimpses of a secluded

corner that have other dimensions

known to both of us. In that

series I am the only one seeing,

responding to ambient sounds

and a faraway and distressful

pull, an eclipse controlling

fluids in me. I am dreaming

towards you but not all we

had was perfect. Almost never

a calling, just a delayed yet forceful

enchantment, not unlike an allure but much closer to the interest

a leaf has with a tree, warning it

of the upcoming storm.

The other series I have yet to

enter, another home I have

yearned in days where I was

surrounded by dry-wood,

encased in tar. That image

forms endlessly almost

begging you to enter with me

so that at least when I retell

this story, describe that image,

you can contribute to defend

its magnificence. Because I promise

you there will be shit-talk

about the damp that draws closer

to us adding to the

finesse with which I have created

a victorious body for

the meek, the unwanted, the

sullen even. This is composite,

of compounds neither known to you

nor to me. Like when data

dripping into pores coagulate and

I can finally visualise us high

and accept that like every other

you will also not return to

that house.

-

A version of this poem has been published in the book The World That Belongs To Us: An Anthology of Queer Poetry from South Asia (2020), edited by Aditi Angiras and Akhil Katyal.