Poem | Ilhan Israr
You either talk in length about the bewilderment of love,
or the inevitable failure of genuine connections
in the age of online dating,
but nothing in between.
Never about the ignominy of our youth.
One that hides behind campus walls past midnight
where the mist is pierced by the music played,
as we carry around the decrepit speaker in a long march of futility
from Patel Chest till the Ridge.
Synth-Pop? or Rock?
Maybe some good ol’ Jazz and Blues after getting too deep into Morrison’s Beloved.
The walls, plastered with slogans of dissent
“Down with Patriarchy”
“End Operation”
And the night always promises change.
The night always promises revolution.
We yearn for it.
We beget it.
Until the dawn breaks
and we’re thrown off into an ironic slumber, again.
We twirl and dance on the shattered glass of our ignorance for breakfast,
in a deadly dance of dervish.
For lunch,
we wipe off the gory floor with tears
that were shed lamenting the ever-burgeoning hunger to hunt.
Dinner?
The knives refuse to work on anything but flesh.
And we’ve consumed ourselves enough to have an appetite now.
But we can roam around the campus again.
Maybe tomorrow night?
Or we can just spend it together
in your two-by-four room
that faintly reeks of cigarettes and damp clothes.
But you’re out with a body that has no name.
A body, who’s blistered finger scratches your skin for love.
Of all the things this city has ever birthed,
its deathless liminality is my favourite child.