Arrhythmic

I brewed some tea

poured it into a cup

took it to the lonesome balcony

at the rear end of my house

where stays a woven cot

bearing a footstool’s company

bagged enough to be

mistaken for a swing

where you can’t sit

without slipping eventually to sleep

its faded plastic strips

date back to some decades

changing them has never

been anyone’s concern

as if the fade is some eternal clock

speaks of time that passed

as it fades to one shade lighter

that footstool though proudly polished

squatted all along watching

the cot grow feeble

carrying feet that hung from

its overarched strips

and sometimes my tea cup

~

I sat carefully on the brink

following a painful crink

I forgot briefly how stern life could be

imbibing the calmness

of my lonesome balcony

facing some corner that is

‘feng shui-balanced’ apparently

imbalance and disharmony

still not gone

yet no one ever forgets to mention

the idea of bragging cracks me up

about something

that never worked up!

~

breeze grew colder

or someone turned the fan on

perhaps the house-help

who mops and forgets

her brimming rant

often submits to my silence

and I bear her passive-aggression

in our own language

we help each other

but this unkempt body today

unwilling to leave the comfort

 of the cot that has swung

a little deeper now

engulfing my whole body

into its deep plasticky abode

and I feel the charge on my skin

like some grief that has passed

leaving its saplings to grow

gingerly,

when there’s silence

when there’s solitude

and I just let it get into my head

let the numbness soak me instead

and I wish to sleep through

forever and ever

~

a thud on the door

the house-help left with

an attempt to wake me up

I wonder if she wonders

sometimes,

to check my breath or pulse

but I hear, she hears before leaving

the click of the latch behind her back

and the utensils freshly washed

being taken to brew the tea

again,

with me, the tea

and the nothingness

to mingle in the balcony

again,

for the cot is not yet broken.

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