Poem by Vaishnavi Radhakrishnan
I pick up seashells when I’m near shores
and store them in a sandalwood box.
Every now and then I hold a shell from the box
to be swallowed by the memory of a sea kissing my toes,
salt on my tongue, hair tangled with sand and
ocean waves in my ears
When my best friend was moving to another country
I made him postcards pasted with leaves
from all the places he loved here
just so that whenever he missed all things home and his heart felt heavy
he could look at those postcards and feel one bit closer to home
I click pictures of sunset skies day after day
trying to capture the orange-yellow-lilac-pink spillovers up there.
I watch a sunset and I learn what it is
to feel full, to melt upon another’s arms
and most importantly
to wave a graceful goodbye
My best friend and I, we are not ordinary lovers of the rain.
we send each other voice notes of nothing but the pitter patter of droplets
from our terraces trying to bridge the physical distance between us with sounds of water
and on days when our withins feel droughted of each other’s’ presence
we go back to listening to what the rain sounds like
or maybe we hope to hear each other’s beating hearts
When I take pictures, I tuck flowers behind my ears
only to recall moments later not as dates or days
but rather, as flowers.
Shoe flower was the day I shamelessly delved into one too many chocolate ice creams after arguing with you about how butterscotch was supposed to be the better flavor
Frangipani was when we sat on the rooftop to chase a sunset but instead we shared silences under the rainy evening sky
Gulmohar was the day we met.
Take me back to when we were flowers.
