Your past

is the blinking neon sign outside the bedroom window
that helplessly trickles in through the blinds
to come to rest
on your skin's restless cadence.

It is
the sublime tenderness that colours my everything.

Sleepy SMS

[For P.S.]
Someday, the "I" shall disappear, from bedside confessionals and tableside squabbles, from doodled margins in notebooks and pickled thoughts in solitude, as it shuts its tired wings and nestles into the eager embrace of the second person singular, you.

Drowse.

Sleepy. At the desk.

Think. Stir awake.
Think, think, think.

Question.
When was the last time you dozed off in a controlled environment?

The classroom, of course, where else?
As she unravels macroeconomics, framed in a long horizontal window with snow flakes on the sill. What else? Drippy coats on shiny metal next to the door. Her lopsided handwriting on transparent plastic, those amusing fumbles with the overhead projector. More? The day's edition of wall street journal splayed open, my scribbles all over. Her sepia ballet flats. That's all?  Another breakfast-less morning. Her voice. The way she says "Modigliani". Her eyes.

Oh.
How can I not dream?

Tinsel

Cannae.
Panipat. Leningrad. Nanking.
Verdun. Lepanto. Gettysburg.
Leipzig. Tenochtitlan. Iwo Jima.
Salamis.

And to think
we once cried because
mom didn't give us enough chocolate.