Collaborators:

Ching Nihaarika Negi

 

 

Parched 

The ugly scar of Olympiana lingers across my chest. It twinges with feline grace thumping across the black linoleum of authority.

 

If could only have you, I know I would never have had you. 

 

I would never have seen that olive-skin of liquid night bathed in ochre light. I’d have looked beyond those deadened eyes as they rose beyond and moved deeper still, pulling the mists of a lost childhood dusting the screams of joy that lay buried under the ruins of my life.

 

The moment I drank your flesh I knew I could drink again.

That the earth would come back to me and I ‘ll lie smothered against your ample breasts of sobbing grains of parched sand.

Till the tides pulled me out to sea.

 

Far out to sea.

 

If I could have you, I know I’d never have had you.

Not on the pillowcase,  not on the breathless street.

Not on my breaking lip, not in my phantom limb.

 

If you had looked through your centre, turned about,

I would have dived through the mud, ached around.

 

The moment I drank your molten flesh I knew I’d turn to forgotten stone  and I’d go about once again  hitting the cobblestone paths,  turning corners,  skipping lights and the cobwebs would come again and settle my final dust.

No blood would fall, my face wouldn’t melt  and I’ll always be the half-living  half-dying  unsure block of ice, floating through bodies of skin that leech onto the smiles on your face.

Raw and bleeding in a pool of your freshly-cut fears

I’ll give you my hand of pricked fingers,

if you promise,

only if you promise,

that you’ll disappear forever off of this land.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WRITING FROM PERFORMANCE| LIVE ART