THE LOST ONES

On your dark face 
smile does not spread like a butterfly. 
Most reticent I had been, 
It was very difficult to give, 
and very painful to take. 
You wanted to be noticed, 
and I had a tryst with uncharted path. 

It was coming. 
The separation! 
Like an anal pain of cancer. 
The essence was, usurped by a deathly kiss of cobra. 
Your thoughts, body language were wrapped 
in a tarnished blanket. 
Let us start a parallel monologue 
on different selves. 

Do not count the wounds. 
An anthropologist has become a messenger. 
The history, the fossils, the caves are shouting, 
we were cannibals. 

No sound will trudge now, 
on our empty streets. 
No knocks will come on our doors.

Satish Verma