Poetry at Sangam
Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.
Once I fell in love with situations. Never really remembering the accomplices
involved – their faces blur, their voices crackle but the scene is clear.
With the first one, I enjoyed the sex. It was April. I spent the whole day consuming the
adventures of the Forrester Family and decided to step out only after Blossom. The sky was
orange, we were on a rooftop – he was a neighbour. We kissed a little, surrounded by four jet-
black Sintex tanks and then, it happened, I smiled, though it hurt because I looked up and the
orange sky was speckled with kites returning from Johnson Market with scraps of beef clasped
in their talons. The other times haven’t had the vision of the first time
they’ve just been chalked outlines of our twisted bodies.
The second one wasn’t much. We began with wrestling. And then, we learnt to maintain this
aggression even in the tender moments. It was a tough act. Any slippage
brought the act to a stop.
The other ones weren’t much more exciting.
Eventually, it became easier to transgress the lines between aggression and tenderness.
Between a bite and a bite. And over time, it had been layered with teasing, with taunting.
And recently, it hasn’t been about the situation, it has been about the words, about the actions,
about the need and the guilt – because grating hips became discovering bodies.
The clavicle became sexier than the penis. Initially, the lovers were dominoes.
I would roll into their mattresses and roll out into newer ones.
But I remember them all – they were hard on the outside, blurry at the edges
and taught me that silence is a sound.
Today, I don’t want to roll into or out but submit. I want this mattress to become our world.
Look, Oroon, to the top right corner. Dundee bought a handful of
marigold seeds from a lake in Kashmir for Komal and they are flowering now
in December. I want to sit with you and watch them,
watch them wilt
as well.