Cheat Days

By Palak Jain

On cheat days

I let my heels stumble,

rest my elbows over a table,

drop my alert shoulders

for my eyes to wander

and find another flaw in a smile.

On cheat days

I let my head nod

on the dreams that sway,

my legs pointing the cloudless sky

coursing my fingers across hair fields

knowing not what a date dress looks like.

On cheat days

I let the shawl wrap the air,

trapped in my lungs beneath

the layers of indifferences

till the oppression becomes an obsession

to conclude it ends in an incomplete compulsion.

On cheat days

I let a grin leak my lips

while staring some crossroads

remembering your faded face

drawn over every blurry boundary,

I keep behind curtains of ignorance

and read what skin feels like.

On cheat days

I let myself be yours

stargazer, blabber, an ambler

a worm digging for a word

that sows a seed of empathy,

returning to same caves of destruction.

By Palak Jain