Words That Got Away by Nikhita Makam (16, India)

I. lampyridae 
The night is silent, you can hear the stars rise
forget. forgone. forgotten. forty forbidden lies
and,
there is a darkness between two stars.
and, 
there is a star between two darknesses.

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i could count better, before betrayal began
i could back then feebly field the fierce feelings
now I’m worse
now I’m better
do things
over, over, over
until it’s all over
just go 
row, row, row 
your boat, even 
as it sinks
hearts are hallways
looking your way 
minds are museums 
an open doorway 
Lampyridae 
I’m drawn to what I miss
I know nothing
I know nothing else but this

II. i fall in love with haunted neighbourhoods
I fall in love with haunted neighbourhoods 
with empty houses
devoid of living but evanescent photographs
stand witness to a time when 
the bed wasn’t so empty
with roads that have no cars fluttering by 
no pedestrians 
no children toddling by with hard candy
with the silence of the streets
the quiet of the quiescent stores
where I can whisper my words to the willows
and the water whispers it back to me 
I fall in love with haunted neighbourhoods
with the ghosts that inhabit them because 
they know as I know 
they are no more real than my love 

III. What (opening up feels like) /  (I didn’t tell you when you asked me what I was thinking about)
(i)
Phlegmatic words cling to the walls of my pharynx like slowly dripping sap, 
the viscosity of my vulnerability providing enough drag for them to cling to my chest like jello that you left in a blender and can’t clean out
words that are stringy like half dried glue and then the tangled threads sit here,
right here, where my mouth falls into my throat and my throat emerges into my mouth
a yarn ball, it lodges itself there and I cannot cough it out so I swallow it back
it leaves a slimy trace on my tongue. 

(ii)
Thoughts that lead to a graveyard of more thoughts where all these dead thoughts sit on their own graves and think of more thoughts that die before they are born, the intrapartum deaths give rise to thought ghosts that haunt the graveyard 
and they die
and they die
and they die
and they die
and they die
until it is only tombstones as far as you can see, whispering ghosts in clandestine catacombs, 
a tear gas grenade of thinking and thinking and thinking.

(iii)
The emotion is in glass bottles that line the mahogany shelves of my stomach, the glinting green glass whispers that it doesn’t want to hurt you and it’s for the best but go ahead gulp it down go ahead feel the fiery lava burn your buccal cavity go ahead feel the heat come to life under your eyes go ahead the double vision, the blurry vision, the wasted vision, go ahead till your body has to take the keys away from your brain go ahead it hurts to sit with all this emotion swimming in your intestines go ahead, no one will judge you if you cry now

(iv)
I brew tea with the bags under my eyes and use it to fuel forward, 
my concrete tongue and mortar mouth hide a mercury soul, 
it is easy to be dandelion seeds, light 
but it pains to carry this truck of thoughts 
suddenly slimy baseballs with embedded glass shards are spilling out of my mouth, 
they cut my lip and slip out before I can catch them 
I don’t want you to help me pick them up. 
I don’t want you to leave so I do it instead.

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