Love is Time: Three Poems
Painting: Ivan Guaderrama
By Syamantakshobhan Basu
You Take the Time to Know a Person
You take the time
To know a person,
And they unfold to you
Slowly, in layers.
Like a miracle that you cannot find
In any of your holy books.
A picture of them
Crops up on your Facebook wall,
And you fill up with wonder
That you did not know you could feel,
At the sight of another person.
You take the time
To know a person,
And all the black poison that has
Collected over time in your heart
And made you bitter
Washes away overnight,
Till you wake up one morning
And find that you are cleaner
Than you ever remember.
You take the time
To love a person,
And you find peace
In discovering the little things that they do.
How they turn up their lips in a specific way
When they say a certain word.
Or how their eyes flicker with restlessness
During a pause in conversation.
Or how they have a habit of tying their stray
Hairband casually on their wrist.
You take the time
To love a person,
And they become like the first rains
That drench your city on an April evening.
You watch as they curse at a passing vehicle
That has splashed their dress with roadside mud.
And you laugh as they turn to you,
A smile slowly spreading in their face.
And your heart beats so loud
It drowns out the sound of thunder.
You make the effort
To let a person into your soul,
And they teach you things about the world
That you had never known.
In a person you love,
There is magic to be found
If you are willing to take the time
To seek it.
***
Everything Passes
You wear fresh pain like you
Wear new clothes
That are tight and smart
And hurt after a long day,
Which has not gone like you
Had hoped it would.
But all clothes get old,
As all heartbreaks do as they
Become a part of your skin,
Scabbing over and healing
On the surface
But always remembering to
Leave their mark deeper.
You wear fresh pain on your flesh
Till it gets old and loosens
Slackening at the edges,
Falling over in excesses
Over your shoulders, ribs, and hips.
In time, you take it off
And hang it up in an old wardrobe
As a memory of something
That was once a part of you
And will always remain
At the back of your mind,
Waiting for you to search for it.
When the present gets too solid
Or the past too thin,
You take out tattered old pains
Off their hangers and measure them
Against a body that no longer matches them
But still remembers their electric touch.
So swallow the ache and lie still for a week
A month, a year or a century
You’ll look in time and suddenly find
That the old pain no longer fits you.
***
Frozen/Flesh Memory
I wear you like an old watch
Which has stopped exactly
At the moment we met last.
In the meantime the world has
Turned and the warm Sun shifted.
Winter is now here to stay,
At least for a little while.
Outside, the days get shorter
And I lie awake through the
Lengthening hours of the night.
I write to you and about you
But no one sees the letters
That pile up in a corner of the room.
I will take them all to my terrace
And burn them for warmth
Once it gets colder here.
The words are all branded
Into my head, the writing glistening
Red from under my drying skin.
When it comes to you,
I have never needed ink to remember.
I wear you like a photograph
On the inside of my chest,
That has frozen exactly
At the moment we met last.
When we see each other again
You will come out of the picture
And the touch of your warmth
Will trickle down cold hands
To the place in my stomach
Where the butterflies live.
When we meet again the
Hands of my watch will spin
With great speed to make up
For all the time that it has lost.
The little time capsule will melt
All at once and release you.
When you smile at me again
This whole winter will dissolve.
Bio:
Syamantakshobhan Basu, 25, is an entity with as many contradictions as his name is long. Chiefly, while in the human flesh, he is a writer, activist, occasional musician, unpaid funnyman, and hopeful romantic. He believes that the Revolution will come, and it will come with music and dancing. In the meantime, he studies for an MPhil in English at Jadavpur University and doubles as a freelance copyeditor. He has been published in Muse India and has several works in a forthcoming collection of young Indian poets.
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One Response to “Love is Time: Three Poems”
Beautifully captured