Paper Love

PAPER LOVE

I want more

than you are willing to give.

A thirsty child

at the mouth of a deserted tap,

I kiss

and try to suck out love that doesn’t flow

and look to see the colours you wouldn’t show

and seek to give you flowers we haven’t grown.

If I told you I knew the way,

I would have lied a thousand lies

for I do not know the way

that leads from where I stand

to thousands of places I want to take you.

I am an arrow and you are a moving target,

the eyes of a frightened bull.

My words fall on drums with the forgotten rhythm

of our once synchronized tachycardic arrhythmia

like rain drops falling on the lose skin of the gangan

which was abandoned by the fleeing drummer

whose melody morphed

from something that soothed the princess’ heart

to a king’s sole affliction.

I am rooted to the spot where I fell from your warm embrace,

the street corner where our dreams once met

in the sun-less wetness of an August evening.

Though I left you and miss you like a failed handshake,

I may never return

because my home goes where you go

and my lost voice echoes a call to your deaf aloofness.

If I could paper love over cracks,

you and I would be sutural bones

beneath a scalp.