Two Decades—Chandni Varma and Inam Hussain Begg Mullick

 I’ve been going in and out 

of your mind

for at least two decades now.

You are a noise

in my soul,

I scratch the skin of dreams

and see you dance among

the narcotic tulips. 

Why you wouldn’t 

join me in this dance,

ask the tulips.

As they thank me

for intoxicating them 

with my dangerously

soul-printing perfume.

Your perfumery traverses the twilight,

I recognize the enormity

of my desire;

the theremin player

slays stars and ghosts.

Blue elephants 

live in my pocket.

Your eyes finally meet mine

as they search

through the tulip farm. 

We look up at the blue velvet sky

as the night 

is alight with fireflies  

dancing with the intoxicated

blue elephants. 

Two decades is a long time.

The tree we planted has grown taller.

Electronic skulls gather at the beach.

I am on a vacation from grief.

I join the dance. 

I enter the gentle, sacrosanct dark.

The war has ended.

The recalcitrant lions

shake the winter.

Your armpits are storms.

More like tornadoes.

Stubborn. Sudden. Savage. 

I thought I’d lost you.

The years come with 

more cures.

We keep getting better

at missing the disease.