what is      if you would flee like a winsome breeze why shiver in my embrace tenderly     despite all your mistrust of me? you're a stubborn bird indeed. if you would lay mortar and bricks     why smile shyly in that café, tilting your nose sideways at me     and a twinkle in your eye         and your chiclet teeth     and a winnowing dimple         creeping up your cheek sweet vulnerability!     I adored you then, I think or was it between     the coo of your affectionate sis         and your marvelous drink             your close clutch of my waist     floating cows after dark         a flirtatious dance in darkness, bliss             a langorous day and amorous play         a beachside feast, a sunset blink     a reassuring kiss         past midnight in the park? it's all a dull deadness now, I think. after cock's crow, the tumblers flick     with speed, discarded         cold metal keys and there you leave me every time, consistently it's your insecurity. i can refire a floater     but i'm artless with thee - forgive me. Even     a surgeon's touch falters when it's     a loved one cut - my fault, I simply     liked you too much. something was once and isn't any more     its passage now fraught with catacomb doors. a cosmo and my shuddering monsoon     have sealed those passages artfully i prefer not to dwell on it, but clearly     i'm scarlet? crimson internally         so i thank you, i suppose it's christmas come early. tonight i thought I taught         you how to wound     a cold bullet, I'd said, a spartan, silver one, custom-carved to stalk     your greatest enemy's         greatest insecurity     with precision. how little did I see! i sit humbly you've corrected me. neither bullet nor foe, it's nearer still. a once nearer one is a dearer kill.     you asked tonight, so nonchalantly,         'i don't know - when last did you I see?' and i remembered instantaneously. thirteen days, twenty-three hours     and minutes thirty-three emotional bullets are not the height of cruelty it's memory

Manish Vij