If You Cannot Find Me

By Shravani P.T.

Molten lids unclosed,

sipping the night dry

of serendipity,

If you flail your arms around

to somehow grasp

my after-scent in this city,

Remember to forsake

the reminiscence

of my once-musty self,

crouching by the moth-eaten fireplace,

And hungry walls –

falling - and folding in –

to now spray paint your ashen face –

No longer a face!

Merely a canvas

of fairy tales having come undone.

Throw open the iron gates,

and usher in the bees

that circle the glyph

around my sweetened remains,

From a time

when our memories

would travel through paper planes.

Stand guard in piety

at the Vatican

lest vultures invade,

The echoes of our vows

fluttering through

the Roman arcade.

Flirt at the edge

of the cliffside:

the exotic is more than a view,

Wear like armor

your crescendo,

and you'll dwarf a skyline (or two).

Sit by the lakeside,

and speak to flightless birds,

if you so please,

I will, perhaps, come to you

when you shun daylight

for the caress of the pine trees.

But do not look for me

in decayed letters

written to you in haste,

I've outgrown

being the forgotten,

the wasteland's waste.

Do not seek me

under an orchestra

of fickle stars,

My chock-full of bones

lie bleeding,

albeit, pride-filled,

from fighting fruitless wars.

Do not want me

after the sherry

has scorched your lips,

What's a brazen heart worth

when you're reaching

for just fingertips?

You will not find me

in this rancid

intimate swirl,

of dwellings that once had me.

Built me. Broke me.

But were never my only world.

By Shravani P.T.