Before the clamour of existence swallows us whole — Poems by Kahini Thakur

It’s morning,
the sun kisses the water into stardust,
making them dance as long as the light stays.
I do profess that the lovers did not die;
they exist somewhere here
in this blue ballroom, the sea,
after the corpses rot and turn into stardust.
We can see them swirl and dance
only when the light touches the sea,
holds their hand gently,
calls them to dance as the sea glistens
and daylight gets down on its knees
on the shore to worship them.

And here, we come to watch them.
The eternal dance after their final one;
the lovers, they have perished,
now they dance in this vast blue ballroom
before the sun and the seagulls,
before us,
until our corpses rot, become stardust,
& we join them each morning.

I. fifteen,
slouching towards halls too big for us
and too small to become what we wanted,
we grabbed on adolescence and all things
cruel and unformed like young celeste fig trees.
esoteric, we liked to call ourselves
formed circles with a few,
as if bitterness and discomfort in
the excruciating search for the self is not universal.

II. sixteen,
with its grotesqueness and rage —
the all-encompassing rage,
the sweetness of innocence in a coffin,
buried deep somewhere
near the glistening lake we used to visit.
the geese hovering the scene
as if painting it red & gold at five.
who's young? if it's not the runaway boys
& the rebellious daughters of the town.

III. seventeen,
and we are learning to be sweet.
we have exiled ourselves from home
with all the doings and undoings,
altering from one form to another
without knowing when to be what.
sometimes angels, sometimes corrupt,
because when does the good ever win?
bare, or sometimes armed,
because who isn't cruel?

IV. eighteen,
and there's no finish line
or people cheering at the end that
"you've made it, little one."
nor have you learnt sweetness or cruelty;
there is only a lingering awareness of
the abyssal depths of the yet-to-come's.
Come Sit, For A While
V. epilogue.
but,
we have seen happy children playing
with bruised knees,
tenderness within the winter-sun
that kisses november’s arrival,
fireworks at midnight bidding farewell
to another year of wining and losing,
we have seen all consuming beauty
in the becoming and unbecoming,
lived beside it, hand in hand
& for old time’s sake,
i’d like to build sandcastles by the beach
on sunless afternoons with you.

before the clamour of existence swallows us whole,

i. come, sit. for a while.
let me peel you some oranges.
and then, perhaps
we can put on matching knee socks and
sit under the red oak tree outside
without saying a word and
count the egrets near the lake
or talk hedonism, and death.

our throats soaking up the warmth of the sweet,
sweet winter sun.

write our names on my bedroom mirror
with my maroon lipstick
send me letters about your awful week.
go cherry picking together &
not languish in the horrors of it all.

thank you,
for taking my hand
and making the act of existing breathable.

& yes, mother.
i would jump as well.
jump into the lake with our clothes on,
dance to the music of the eighties,
cavort in the fields of april barefoot
with our hands clasped,

like children too young to think about
the daisies wither and the branches bare.

ii. come, let’s dance.

they are playing our song
we throw our arms up in the air
lifting the weight of existing & what not

and losing it, momentarily —
carpe noctem.

the lights, blinking neon red and blue;
how time dissipated into thin air i wonder.

it is morning again,

iii. come stay,
just a little longer.