Paresh Tiwari

Confessions

The name plaque on the door reads your name flanked by a sun, a wine glass, a toy-car, a butterfly, and a dragon. You could have been any of these, if not anything or anyone else any more. Was it just an evening that we spent together? Pressed into each other till there was nothing to separate your breath from mine.

I could have smelt the rainclouds under your eyes even then. But I chose not to. It was easier that way. Not knowing. It released me from the need to soften my touch. It saved you from plummeting into the labyrinths of my corridors.

pause
a moon shaped hole
in the night sky

It’s not as if the grooves on your palm could become the wounds on mine. But we tried. Oh, we did.