Within and Without

By Kanupriya Rathore

There is in me a mild, absurd ache like
the need to strike your love across the face

 

like doe- eyed women,
cool as something blue

 

who fan their furious necks
and forget their children’s name

 

there is in me
something that needs

 

to be scratched out slowly, like sex
between people who have never loved themselves

 

a desire to touch a strangers hair
and take home fistfuls of it

 

to swallow all the smells I have ever smelt
and cough till I am hollow

 

like a flute so I can fill the night with
the song of everything

 

there is in me a fear of chocolate
that comes in different shapes

 

and melts against my tongue,
To always taste the same

 

there is in me so much that’s gone now
and so much that never came

 

Kanupriya Rathore from India is a honours student from Lady Sri Ram College, Delhi University. She has returned to her hometown of Jaipur after eight years of boarding school and is currently writing.