It lives. Observe,
then,
the first faulty
scales of justice
fist-sized,
rusting away
in cobwebbed corners
of knowledge made flesh. No ledgers
tally here: yearning
is always mired in red –
observe, now, the deep vivid warm red
in this antechamber
of churning dreams, flushed
with furious lust,
fire raging in its belly
as it scampers up the trunk
of the tree of life
seeking out
every last leaf, every farthest
branch, every lurking bract
mapped on this body
mapped on this fragile, fierce body
quivering with a hunger
willing to shatter
all known laws of the universe
merely to meet another deep vivid warm red
if only at the fingertips.
What the first faulty scales of justice
doesn’t know
is that even faulty scales tip over
and sometimes
a thirsting aching dreaming yearning
body
is a weight the universe cannot bear,
will not bear, for fear
of learning
its laws to be empty words.
The universe writes new laws then:
to dream is to love disaster, to yearn is
to court aching, to ache is to ache more.
Now see how your red falters. See how
it retreats from cheek and lips
and loins and breasts, see
its fire and joy and promise
ring
hollow
veined with the blues
of a world
built on stardust and dream-ash
from charred bodies
of lovers
who dared defy stars and planets
and names
engraved upon once newly-clean
foreheads
ready to bear out new destinies
treading the same old trajectories:
tell me, what’s
in a name but the entire universe
sitting in judgment
seeking a blood price
for scripture and stricture
wounded?
And so life-blood pounds, lifeless, against
bloodless walls, seeking life –
wandering
from right atrium to ventricle to lungs
torn asunder in two
where blood meets breath meets hope
new futures pulsing and flaring
across
well-worn paths buried beneath scar
and skin
and it is written, and it is so:
lub dub lub dub lub dub
vivere, vivo, vivus
Tapping out, in non-code, against
remorseless rib cage
the song of bone and blood, muscle
and sinew:
I live. I live. I live.
Written for IIT Madras' inter-hostel creative writing (solo) contest, based on the prompt "It was like a vivisection."
then,
the first faulty
scales of justice
fist-sized,
rusting away
in cobwebbed corners
of knowledge made flesh. No ledgers
tally here: yearning
is always mired in red –
observe, now, the deep vivid warm red
in this antechamber
of churning dreams, flushed
with furious lust,
fire raging in its belly
as it scampers up the trunk
of the tree of life
seeking out
every last leaf, every farthest
branch, every lurking bract
mapped on this body
mapped on this fragile, fierce body
quivering with a hunger
willing to shatter
all known laws of the universe
merely to meet another deep vivid warm red
if only at the fingertips.
What the first faulty scales of justice
doesn’t know
is that even faulty scales tip over
and sometimes
a thirsting aching dreaming yearning
body
is a weight the universe cannot bear,
will not bear, for fear
of learning
its laws to be empty words.
The universe writes new laws then:
to dream is to love disaster, to yearn is
to court aching, to ache is to ache more.
Now see how your red falters. See how
it retreats from cheek and lips
and loins and breasts, see
its fire and joy and promise
ring
hollow
veined with the blues
of a world
built on stardust and dream-ash
from charred bodies
of lovers
who dared defy stars and planets
and names
engraved upon once newly-clean
foreheads
ready to bear out new destinies
treading the same old trajectories:
tell me, what’s
in a name but the entire universe
sitting in judgment
seeking a blood price
for scripture and stricture
wounded?
And so life-blood pounds, lifeless, against
bloodless walls, seeking life –
wandering
from right atrium to ventricle to lungs
torn asunder in two
where blood meets breath meets hope
new futures pulsing and flaring
across
well-worn paths buried beneath scar
and skin
and it is written, and it is so:
lub dub lub dub lub dub
vivere, vivo, vivus
Tapping out, in non-code, against
remorseless rib cage
the song of bone and blood, muscle
and sinew:
I live. I live. I live.
Written for IIT Madras' inter-hostel creative writing (solo) contest, based on the prompt "It was like a vivisection."
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