Soft October Night

By Yashika Vashisht

I was burned alive and I am still on fire,

Fanning the flames in the furnace of desire;

Writing about a burned child’s love with a burned hand,

Rephrasing ashes into jumbled words you will never understand.

If you think that words are all I will ever be able to give to you,

Then my love, you’re wrong, you’re an angel; I live and breathe you.

I will give you love, the mellow and messy pause between life and death,

I will pour myself all out and I say this in one sweet, easy breath.

I write like I kill, it’s a cry of despair,

A dying fire inside of me, reaching out somewhere;

My sweetest, let me love you the way poets often talk about,

Let’s fall in love and never fall out.

A soft October night, telling me I can’t win,

But those brown winsome eyes keep drawing me in;

Mixing our smiles together, laughing and plunging down,

Forgetting in cruel happiness that even friends drown.

By Yashika Vashisht