[Note from Frolic: We’re so excited to welcome poet Shrutee Choudhary back to the site. She’s sharing more of her breathtaking poetry with us!]
1. I keep the curtains drawn so that way, I could be anywhere in the world. my imagination holds my reality’s hand in this bedroom, and I teleport.
I sip on macchiato after devouring the best pizza in a roadside café in Italy.
I watch Before Sunrise and walk the cobbled alleyways of Vienna.
every now and then, I slip away to the west village in New York, my emotions as diverse as the crowd there.
so far I’ve watched the northern lights, jumped off cliffs, hiked at countrysides. I’ve been everywhere in my mind, a variety of vibrant finds
but each night, after a great new adventure, I clench my fists, I close my eyes shut
and try really, really hard to end up next to you
and every time I end up right where I began, alone
lovelorn, as vacant as the other side
of my bed. my eyes puffed up just like your pillows, trying as hard as I can to remember you
but my mattress doesn’t dent from your weight anymore, only my heart seems to grow heavier.
the more you fade, the more I persuade
myself to hold onto
what is so clearly not mine anymore.
so I keep my curtains drawn, to try and forget that we belong to the same city but not to each other
I let my mind take me away to someplace new, as long as it’s a place that I haven’t been with you.
2. I want you to know that I will wear your jacket, even if it reeks
of seven yesterdays
to make something of you be something of mine
for days that you’re not around
and I’m lost in time
and I will ask the moon a favour, to lookout for you when I can’t do so myself
she owes me, you know, for hundreds
of nights I’ve spent facing up, having our balcony camaraderie, through all of her phases
so she will help
and if at all you decide to take
your favourite jacket away
if your hand decides to
leave mine
if our love doesn’t live
to see another day
I will borrow
the darkest fold of the sky
drape myself
in its midnight blue
land a seat right next to the moon
in the hopes to catch a glimpse of you.