With thick grey strings –

They stuttered, murmuring warmth

On your hibernal skin

And as you let sighs

Escape your being 

Like a prayer unheard –

By any other deity but me –

I memorized each as a personal sin. 

On my twenty first birthday

You forgot to wish me

Midnight came and went

Like one of your weary exhales

But your footsteps never did

Only your heart

- Still stored away

In the deepest end of my closet –

Skipped a beat 

And unmatched your biorhythm

Wilfully with me

That night 

- As the clock beat in sync

With my turbid anxiety –

Your redness followed me

In the volatile world

Of my half-remembered dreams

I inhaled the toxicity 

From your lips 

Like it was all I needed to breathe

But halfway I woke up 

To find my bedsheet strangling me

Or perhaps it was your eyes

I could not tell

Both were equally faded

Into inanimacy.

On my twenty second birthday 

You tore away your heart

From my burning breast 

And laid a black canvas in its place

It thawed the blaze inside my veins

But my arteries remain thirsty 

Now, I measure my air intake

Painting white strokes with every breath

Each morning –

As the clock stops at nine –

I sip on the chipped pieces

You left behind 

A gift for my twentieth birthday –

Our first love’s anniversary –

And yet it lacks the love

That I craved for –

A devout declined plea –

Full to the brim 

With the warm yellow 

Of uncured heartbreak.