just the day before everyone died
i was diagnosed with a disease
that didn’t care much for drugs,
our rainy thursdays
were stacked somewhere in the folds of the clouds
outside my window -
i counted them
as the wrinkles that gave prominence to your forehead
as the one black spot on your hard palate
which even you didn’t know existed
or like the sounds slipping off your tongue
which normal people called breathing in a dreamlike state.
the day when everyone died
we embraced the graveyard lane, and dust-like reality,
the air collapsed into dark seasons
and was translated in a universal language -
we named it our-dirge; for want of a better word.
the day when everyone died, the day when we turned into ghosts:
we clung to a song,
reshaping words as the breaths
escaping, becoming, birthing
from our clasped hands;
we clung to a song,
to bring back what’s dead.