Unspoken Desires

By Gouri S

Darkness is smothering me.

I feel weightless;

hanging onto a dream,

wishing daybreak would never come.

I know this feeling in some

unknown corner of my heart.

I know it like a song loved-

but long forgotten,

a breath stuck in my throat.

The damp earth beneath my feet,

a star studded sky,

bookshelves covered in cobwebs,

dusty ancient scrolls,

a dim light without a source. 

As I oscillate between feeling-

everything and nothing;

my tongue is frozen,

my feet are numb.

But I don’t need to speak

to be heard here.

In this place between worlds,

carved out by my desires.

A forest in my mind,

filled with the dark and strange.

I want to grasp it;

clutch the till its cuts,

but they are light as feathers;

Immaterial. 

I long for more,

long to melt into a steam of sunlight,

blow over the mountains as a breeze,

flow along the vast ocean as a current,

be free of this flesh and breathe. 

Yet I know it cannot last.

Even now I feel shackles of wakefullness

weigh down my body;

as I inch towards the monotony 

of this mortal world.

By Gouri S