Death, Make Me A Cup of Tea

By Komal Aandhiwal

Let it be said that I stood on your doorway

with blood-stained sunflowers in my mouth,

life was sifting through me like black sand 

from an hourglass glued to the table, and

I couldn't help but just wait and watch, and wait. 

Wrong hands on me, 

charred these eyes deep enough that

I can no longer tell blacks from whites

no longer tell wrongs from rights.

They left me blue, and they say

blue is the child who 

became an orphan on a Saturday night.

It is waiting to be adopted

and it is almost Thursday.

I've borrowed too much from life and its people,

like I did, to write this letter to you.

There's no way out, 

I wish you visited me a few times 

before I came to you, but there's no second time I realise. 

You'd come only when you need me and that's a hard truth 

I try to swallow. So now I wait. 

With sunflowers in my mouth,

Orphaned blue in my eyes,

and a letter, apparently devoid of the love 

I have for you.

Death, make me a cup of tea and come, talk to me. 

Words failed me (no, I failed them) when I was alive.

By Komal Aandhiwal