you implant subtle disasters in the vacant pores of my skin every time your brown-sugar hands touch my desert-sand body.
the first time your arms brushed over mine as you reached for the bowl of salted peanuts, you left a two-point-five Richter scale earthquake tremoring on my elbows. which, my hopeless romantic heart mistook as a gush of electricity induced by the great conjunction of two star-crossed lovers.
your fingers tucked a violent riot under my pushed back cuticles the first time we held hands across worn-out menu cards scattered on the coffee-stained table. and since then, I’ve known to cause reckless roadblocks and senseless strikes to protest against the bridge of continental distance between your hands and mine.
the first time i cried into your shoulders, you held my mascara-ridden face in your palms and placed a swirling hurricane over my eyelids. your fingertips traced the shorelines of my spine and it triggered oceanic tsunamis across my bones. you kissed the tear-soaked corners of my lips and my woodland heart caught a wildfire.
but then in the end, the day our fingers interlocked with each other for the last time, you turned me into a drought-affected wasteland. so now, i look like war and the aftermath of it, both at the same time. and that is to say, i hope your next lover looks more like disaster-management lessons. and mine, less like a catastrophe.
Aparna Nair