A Heavy Summer (#3)

Art by Vladimir Kush

My senses are always in consonance with the way time flicks my insides. A heavy summer crucifies my tongue inside a nightmare that I keep wanting more and more. They say pain is an addiction and this day has been everything but that – an addiction sucking me knee-deep. It unfurls on my neck like a morning breath rising anew, like the birds fluttering inside a jar of mishaps. You shake it, until there are enough cracks for you to get in – enough space for your word to mingle with mine.

I think of all the pages dying every night in the grave of your spit. The way this world wraps itself under your skin and inside my fingernails – is a fable residing in the very vacancies of our hearts. Do you know about a ‘Wanting’ that ‘Needs’? It often dawns upon me when your scent travels down my spine. Chills.

This heavy summer is but a monsoon under my eyelids, stretching beyond mortal lines. I want to make the most of it with a hand that can trace all these poems and own them, need them. Need me.

-Nameera Anjum Khan

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