"A Lane Of The Hills"

By Ayan Chakraborty

I have wounded myself through my windings.

Across little spaces, into little lives.

Strangling the hills in search of love,

I have climbed miles in steep ascent.

Where so many fingers fidget beside the thick tails of deceit and demands. Like those of hilly curs.

Sickly panting after winter.

Drooping, in cozy, unnamed parlors beside shouts from the unnamable.

Loud, wailing drinks on a warmer afternoon, to a pack of uno cards, to hookah coal, to South Korean music and old Hindi discs , to Nepali chants, to promises from history.

To gullibility, to belief, to sleep,

to dreams again, perennial dreams...

My dreams have become surly with my superior; the road that takes you to the mall market.

He promises you like them. He takes you to the view of the frost that so many have died for from afar, died in while the climb.

Even on cloudbursts, he storms you to mossy, wet disappointments.

Your unending feet and their trails , his only claim to life.

I hit him straight at his arms. My dreams sway with his disbelief.

I have wounded myself so many times. With scars of the sacred lie.

When she, from the days of lore, looks at me and croons, "...little harvests, it is summer...the end is near."

I heal.

By Ayan Chakraborty