Published on 09:45 PM, March 21, 2024

POETRY

Sleepy ghost flight

You have made ice out of my heart;/ we were once nothing–you brutalise me

Design: Maisha Syeda

I live best when I am living to collapse 
like peeling citrons from a freshly planted lime tree.
Breathing thing cocooned in a blue capsule,
I sleep as the days lose count of who they are;
sometimes you come through unannounced.
The heart cradles the shallow, and in between
these days that are split open like the bottoms of paper
bags, I live easy and savour your death.
So cold and delirious, you're built like the devil,
You have made ice out of my heart;
we were once nothing–you brutalise me,
And so I become less and less.
Never wishing to be so easily devoured, 
with nothing to surrender I give up for the first time,
and for the last time I see your face.

So you fade, and so you leave,
waning against the beeping black that flatlines–
a tiny, jaded not-being.

Snata Basu is an aspiring poet from Dhaka, Bangladesh. Her work mostly centres on passionate, personal bindings. She is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature at North South University.