Fragments of my night:

I'm waiting here for the dawn to curl into the edges of this purple night. You are far away, your night has barely set in. Someone has stolen your salt, I crouch in the corner of my kitchen, croaking into a borrowed-stolen phone, in urgent hushed tones, my bad throat cracking at an ungainly high pitch. Savouring the sound of your voice. You play to the house (am I your house) Gandhi ne kya sikhaya madarchodh 

You speak of betrayal. Like I have spilt blood I cannot see, cannot touch. You are thinner than when you left and I think of your ribs stacked in line under your striped cardigan. How can I explain my love? I can't. There is just this rush of blood, to the head to the toes to my itchy cold nose.  

I bartered my body to numb my mind, my insidiously out of proportion body. 

But it's so small! How could you share it with someone else?

--

The man I told you about came online and told me about death threats, but I could not switch between my world and his so I turned invisible.

--

He returned with a green light in the sky: I have dreamt about capturing the sky like this but Akira did not like his whizzing bit of flashing thermacol.  

--

Ma is here, and like always she wakes to check on us. She walks out of her room wildeyed and frowning at the light., she is the queen of the ominous undertone.

--

I sat with Mary by a river (remind me to tell you how names are but eerie premonitions of our lives to come. Will you fall in love with a Mary? I said, then a Mary fell in love with me) and she spread her arms wildly to show me how she felt caged. I will not forget this river this time I have spent with you. Her eyes were wide with the weight of her words, hair flying in a otherworldy breeze.  

I shrank away from the heat of her anger because they did not let us walk home

She followed a frog with the light of a torch, while I rubbed sand on my feet. We watched the ripples, the reflected moonlight. I battled insects for her and wondered how exactly I would go about not betraying her outpouring of love. I have a tenuous hold on confidences. 

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