Poems published in May 2018

It doesn’t feel like Austen’s Novel Anymore

a poem by Kavya Sharma

There are hands inside my throat
That reach till my gut until I throw up
A new kind of emotion you knew
Nothing of, it’s not confusion,
The fingers slide in easy but the
Clocks cry on the wrong day and my
System has failed a hundredth time.

How about we rework our memory
And run back to the coffee shop that
Gave us sugar high under wet trees
While we sat invested on wood chairs?
It doesn’t feel like Austen’s novel anymore,

I’ve skipped another evening meal because
You did not wait for me in the balcony I told
You about, the birds did chirp for some time
But then tired they retired to the night that
Awaited you and me alike.

I remember taking a sip from your
Irish coffee when you looked away
And it tasted a lot like the kiss we
Overcooked in our need to be accepted
By each other when our eyes met but
We said not a word because it was
Just another day.

Hell,
Love was boring when you held my hand
And kissed the nooks of my fingers,
Tilting your head, rolling your tongue in
Alphabets I guessed with no interest,
Your hair covering your eyes,
Your fingers were thinner than mine,
Then feverishly you cupped my face like
I belonged and I closed my eyes knowing I did not.

It’s not painful, the force that we carry
To make this work but it feels like I am
Piling feeling over feeling over feeling that you
And I fail to understand that you and I gulp
Down every night before kissing each other
Good night hoping to wake up alone and understood.