the slow art of breathing bitter

3 am, and I'm alone.

The last hour of strained burns down my throat.

I stare at the gray curtains.

Parted lips, hollow cheeks;

Trembling limbs, numb tears.

The narrow streets lit up

in the chords of silence.

I drown in the sea of memories.

An abstract of hushed hazy days, roadside smoke

olive green laughter, ice blue eyes;

a Saturday evening together in pixie lights on the balcony,

witnessing the shooting stars and 

making promises that don't fathom "forever."

There are no last songs sung.

A silhouette of a musical tune waits

at my sealed window

for someone to soak it in burnt lights.

My eyes are set on the road,

a sun-soaked napkin,

chequered in your name—

wilted flowers of a storm.

You are out for a savage voyage.

Return soon—someone's waiting for you.

A Polaroid of our drunken lives

Slur at one corner.

How oblivious to the world, the

picture-perfect life we drew at eighteen.

This time,

all I can do is lie down,

and try to fall asleep,

because it's better to have sweet nightmares

than choke in your thoughts.

The horizon's dark,

The memories chase

my mind in a way time destructed it.

A thick air of loneliness

hums across the glass rim.

Only loneliness;

I'm alone.

But you don't care.

When the minutes roll away in the known city,

it feels like reconstruction destruction.

The sanity slips away in the cigarette-burned lies.

I think I have made you up in my dumb head.

For I've always been slipping through the cracks of your cold embrace.