Blue And You

By Atraiu Gupta

unalive peace emerged from

undercover colours— (paint me blue; what?)

siren callings bind my heart with

a white lily tie and blue blood.

fixated i stare, at the inward brush strokes,

plastering me with muted sublimes

stolen from tradition's tomb.

dried tints crawled over my outgrowths,

and devoured bits of my sanity—

as i dyed within the stains of shadows

coalescing from ominous centuries.

one green eye, and a hollowed orb

from the withering dark, stared right back

into the dried rivulets of thoughts

that flow from my mind; over my bare body and blinded eye.

am i who i am; who i thought to be, or am i the thoughts of my mind?

and all that haunts me, are the fragments of my vision—

i stare at my flesh, crippled and swollen, and colored and painted

and it stares right back into me,

as if i am everything but a mass of sinews and floating air

stumble i did, under cracked moonlight over my shadow self

waves i felt flow, and then i felt waves flow.

plucked from destiny’s war i was,

only to be thrusted out in pools of blue;

chained i remained, and submerge i did

within flea – bitten sponges and remnants of

the bodiless armies marching past

by the dawn of blue moon.

lured i was, by the liquid temptress—

an elven maid, one with hues for a smile,

and a numb stone heart, one that refused to beat.

and a shadow o’ mine, i do not own— for

the gilded limbs i have, are rented from night of wails.

doom swayed underneath wet sand,

the night she started painting me,

with cloaked brushes dipped in acid;

for beneath us lay the precipice of the battle

that once i had shed my blue blood for.

yet, wafting through the lands of scoured tyranny,

we float over in a sky of blue, visible to none and all.

and beneath me lay waste the lands i once fought for.

an image of certainty, i am not;

for i remain in this damned world for naught;

and drink i do, the moonlit seasalt, from a flask

that once carried an arrangement of bones

dipped within the blue of oceans afar, and

lined up with the moss and soil beneath my footfalls

that leave no trace over this crinkled melting clouds.

with unsold patience, i begged for a place in my world;

yet within a shroud, i was doomed to stay—

an artist she was, and i her painting.

a refuge had i became for her, as she once was for me,

and in fractions, we sold each other to ourselves.

the colours that blind us, are the ones that bind us

within the dents of truthful lies;

we were just two plush hearts

dripping in paint, and choking on our own blood.

By Atraiu Gupta