bliss station ~ poetry

a balancing

I was maybe nine when my mother returned

from the hospital gut meshed just after a hernia

operation / I sat head fused to a pink pillow as

the tear salt streaked it black & black // when

she returned & looked at me I knew I had to

oar her drained boat of a smile to some shore

where she won't lose herself to things I won't

understand // maybe nine when I dreamt up the

stairs to the terrace / willed to jump at a winding

push of the first loss / so far from yesterday

when I turned nineteen / unable to feel any sadness

even at the thought of losing everything //

funny how an hourglass looks like a brittle polygon

of infinity & infinity looks like a balancing

act of two teardrops // tonight / I'm falling in

obsession with anyone who noticed / oaring them

to that sweet spot of sleep where reaching towards

a dream feels better than being in it // I watch my

father massage a lump on my mother's shoulders

with some ayurvedic oil & she says she wants a

hole on her body where nothing happens // parts

of my mind war secrets at each other / memory

like a retreating army reads their land written

with grass one last time before salting its earth &

poisoning the wells // at the sweet shore of sleep

stuck this side of the fissure left behind holding

onto something that has moved on // when I open

my eyes in the moment my mother returns all I

know is the pink blackness of my head against the

pillow & that nothing much ever happens about it

~ Ajay

8/8/2020