The Fear of Being Loved
Photo: Karan Madhok
Poetry: ‘Now, I find apple water in the showers when I / breathe through my mouth, its taste nostalgic, / my mind prepares a child’s orchard’
My lover is supple, he is supper.
He is the rousing wetness on my neck
on humid summer nights, when I sweat
and salt flesh, a ritual that remains a
past dinnertime favourite to this day.
It’s been a few years now and there has
been a shared apartment, animality, kisses,
longings, distance, wishes, children, coffee
and sleep that have melded into a unity.
Now, I find apple water in the showers when I
breathe through my mouth, its taste nostalgic,
my mind prepares a child’s orchard,
a place that never existed within me. I wonder where
it came from? Nothing springs from nothingness.
I had found it because of him.
I can feel conditioned air carry a touch
of metal to my skin. I go back to wood shelves
with retired books and rip the flowers out, the
pressed roses, hydrangeas, lavender and
orchids, bookmarks of a beautiful past.
He’s seeped into me, my self an array of
his remnants. I am a museum
of highs and lows,
the only way I can be kept is if I
feel that I will be left.
My happiness deletes
a part of me, yet I want
rocky fingers and papers that
determine marriages.
I am hungry; unlike him,
they will never see me as beautiful.
He is full; unlike me,
they will never see him
as worthy.
That is the human condition.
I am a remainder and progenitor
of all that has been
and all that can be.
***
Pragya Dhiman is an Indian writer who is pursuing her Master's degree in English from the University of Delhi. Her work has previously been published by Muse India, Defunkt Magazine, Tint Journal, Literary Yard, Poet’s Choice, Teen Ink and more. She has been longlisted for the Wingword Poetry Prize 2023.
