dear sun-swallower | wall-flower,

by prasanna   Mar 19, 2021


crumple this up after you're done reading
because honesty is a beast in drunken stupor,
spilling truths over itself in a dazed panic as
it stumbles across the room towards the door.
you’ll meet its gaze and with a singular stare
into its dahlia-eyes, you’ll wonder if the
kindred thing to do would be to put it out
of its misery:

would anyone scream murder if the
cocooning caterpillar were to be plucked
prematurely?

i only ask you that, because i’ve been
thinking of time lately –

there’s never enough. i bite into it,
it’s bittersweet and i’m not
satiated, do you feel the same?
or is your palate more refined?

do you hunger for time like i do?
do you ever wonder what
eternity tastes like?

rest the sun on your chest,
and i know not whether you bathe
the sun, or the sun bathes you –
you have a kinship with the infinite.

there are few things i’m certain of,
and you are one.

4


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Latest Comments

  • 3 years ago

    by Poet on the Piano

    first line: "your" should be "you're" and sixth line: "it's" doesn't need an apostrophe.

    I loved the questions in this, the presentation of honesty, of it being this drunken beast, and if shooting it down would be better than reflecting on it and abiding by it. The biting into time part was fantastic! Who, out of any of us, have not thought about time being extended, allowing us just one more chance to do this or that. We're never satisfied. Even if we prepare and spend time in the best way we see fit, our expectations are impossible to meet.

    "rest the sun on your chest,
    and i know not whether you bathe
    the sun, or the sun bathes you –
    you have a kinship with the infinite."

    I read this as savoring a moment with a lover, or indulging in this idea of limitless youth, almost a daze, where you can refuse to acknowledge the moving parts of your life that age you, at least for a little while.

    The "i know" kind of tripped me up. I thought it could possibly flow better as "and though i know" or "and know that whether you bathe the sun".

    I loved that clarity in the last two lines, the certainty. That even though this reflection/confession was written perhaps in haste or in a moment of passion, you are confident of and in this person throughout.

  • 3 years ago

    by Mr. Darcy

    a wonderful tribute. I am sure they bathes one another.

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