Midst of a Middle

By Aishwarya Jayal

It’s not that I don’t believe you.

Every word you utter

Takes its own curious shape

In the form of air,

Bent many times over,

Resonating

In a way that is only yours.

It travels

Across apparently nothing

To reach me.

But in the 3 inches

between my ear

And my brain;

It enters cautiously.

As though a long-lost friend,

Knocks hesitantly on my door.

Unsure of their stature.

Or maybe a conscientious thief,

Waiting,

With bated breath.

No one listens better than a thief,

For their sustenance is

On their ability to

Make of sound:

A dimension in

Time, distance and chance.

And now,

The sound is melodic.

But just a little off key,

As though you were testing an instrument

That had slacked off,

Unused.

It’s not that I don’t believe you.

For our eyes meet,

In the familiar gaze

Of familiars.

Yours are blacker,

Maybe that’s why they seem wider

And pupils dilated.

Framed against white,

Black often seems more novel

Than sinister.

The eyes seem coherent,

Just a tad diverged from one another.

Like identical twins,

With the slightest deviation in nose curvatures.

They could be mirror images,

And then, mirrors only reflect another.

It’s not that I believe you.

It’s that I don’t disbelieve you enough

To do anything about it.

Like turning on the fan

On a medium-hot night.

Inertia takes precedence over decision.

But the sleep remains disturbed,

And ear and mind active.

I’m in the midst

Of a middle,

And I don’t want to move to the end.

By Aishwarya Jayal