SINCE I EXIST
NO MORE
-
Tapan Kumar Pradhan (India)
Let us now presume for a moment
That we had never known each other
The soft hours we spent together in café
Happened in another age in another clime
The peacock saree I purchased for you
The midnight oil I burned for your exams
Funky messages we exchanged on twitter
Were all a random alignment of electrons
Which have since auto realigned themselves
To mean something else in some other tongue
For someone somewhere else far away
Not related to you me not even her at all
Even if you undelete your sim card memories
Nothing should remain now of things we shared
But it comes back to haunt me each night
With redoubled brute force
Gnawing at my dark entrails
Like strings from a bond which refuses to snap
If I have ceased to exist for you (as you say)
Why should you torment me all day
all night I can only think of you now
In still larger doses than ever before
Writhing in the shadows left by your scars
In sultry footprints of your digital avatars
****