Dear lover,
It’s barely been a week
Since this affection sparked.
I’ve set my base in your lungs, veins and duct;
The future seems bright.
You are an ocean that gives me buoyancy,
Racing through your bloodstreams.
Harmonising in the key of lonely.
Sweetheart,
You look tired.
Maybe a shade too red
And your heart isn’t steel.
I can’t pick your scent
Amidst this haze of sanitizers.
These building reeks of soap
And fluorescent dyes of PCR machines
Are wrecking me apart.
Your throat too moist to keep me in.
You want to break my heart,
Just like my past lovers
Who dance up your thoughts
Whenever you cough me up.
I never sailed oceans from Wuhan
Resisting seduction from Spain and Italy
For you to reject me!!
I spent sleepless nights
Studying the geography of your body
While you sneezed me in tissue,
Dumped me like something you stepped in by accident.
You masked your soft parts,
Filling up all cracks
That would let me in.
I dressed you in the moonlight
And now you are blooming
In another man’s garden.
Baby,
You and I are congested in your love
But he forces his way into your mouth;
I bite his tongue
So that he bleeds with me,
Tries to cough me up
But I won’t let go.
Did you have to run pale
With fever on a deathbed
To know that I love you?
Did I have to speak in metaphors
For you to start listening?
Or don’t you think it’s only polite
That I get to meet your friends?
Why this social distance?
Why don’t you love me back?
I will take you to heaven baby-love me!
I will make you an angel, a star-love me!
Why do you hurt me with that nasal swab?
Darling, don’t pray me away;
Choking me up with incense,
Entangling me with rosaries.
Don’t write me away
Because the last time I checked,
I am not fiction!!
I am real, too exposed to be unseen,
Devouring hashtags and, stupid memes.
Do we have to do this?
PDA? Really?
They all demand for my attention
Grabbing parts of me that once belonged to you
And now you are rotting in the dirt,
Making me miss you, crave you, love you;
Making me desperate,
For another lover!
by Prisca GUTTABINGI
