love

Keep Your Heart

Artwork by Natia Zarandia

Take me back to the neck kisses in the taxi
when you told the driver “keep the change”
and to me
“keep your heart”
when your lips swept over
my oval dial face
like the minute hands of my grandfather’s passed down Armani watch
when we split love into districts and paid toll for crossing borders and our mouths were two glued parking tickets
when we splurged on bed and breakfast
from all we’d left of the month’s pay
and in the morning after sex
you’d down a bottle of Hennessy
and stare out the window
like you wanted to jump
said you’d never met a girl who carried
satin pillow cases in her rucksack
to safeguard her curl pattern
or blasted her feminist manifesto like a disco spaceship
and I
never told you but I liked your essay on silkworm breeding
not that I even read half of it
see I failed every class but I’d never been this sure of my answer
and there was no question you were so brutally beautiful
and I’d have given every lifetime to geek out over Star Trek and binge watch Ted talks with you
and sometimes when you’d argue about theoretical physics
and contemporary punk bands
I’d stare at your heated face
like I was six again and
you were my first animated film
but like all runaways we got caught
your boyfriend came back
and my mother found out
you moved in with him and I returned to my mediocre job
your presence lingering like unsigned divorce papers
downing Hennessy and staring out the window like I wanted to jump
the mornings after throwing out into the streets
every new lover gracing my sheets
and from time to time I’d think about us
chasing bioluminiscent waves and lunar rainbows and baby yetis
like mystics and pirates and alchemists
so young and intoxicated and brilliant
and when our time came to give our magic up
we put down our laser pistols
and buried our leprechaun gold
and stilled and then settled
and finally faded bravely
like glow-in-the-dark stickers
your kids fell asleep to,
dreams forgotten
at daylight.
—
Poem by Megha Rao 

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