time capsule

all these years erased, memories faded
to blots of ink&dust (rewritten and smudged

in/by a whirlwind of a mind)

nothing is real (nor unreal) in an unchanged sun’s
beckoning light, that falls cold
on the fullness (red pulp &orange rind) of my ripe skin.

this air is not the air that carries
voices &smells across the plateau of another time.

years that were gone/erased —

i never left, never became
a person (more than a hollow bone &pain)
never knew of my left side from right —

as i enter the body
i left behind,
it opens —

dreams drained of any colour, swallowed portions
of rotting needs, all figure in my deadpan speech,

all slow motions to a dead end, as in a little disk of a film,

b&w, sepia, deepening into monochrome lines,

breathing, talking, ageing
but not alive.

.
© Anmol Arora

Image source (The Past is Present by Ellen Brook)

Linking it up with my prompt for dVerse Poetics on Portals

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coming back

the odd-familiarity leaves a dull feeling
to compensate for all those years past —

coal and gravel need to stick to the soles
of my slippers, as a reminder of all that is
glued with the truths of an empty hearth.

the oil-paint peels down on my shoulders,
plaster sticks to my falling hair, reclaiming
the flesh that was shed at a time of loss,
a mark of the presence, of a pulverized hope
that everything can be whole once more.

the lights are cobwebbed in a frenzied display
of lives, lived in entanglements of an arachnid-
mesh, of raised voices, flippant arms, bruises
and burn-marks self-inflicted in the watershed
moments, to break free from the unified mold &
the intrinsic blockades of the wry social norms.

this coming is like the trace of a feline paw-mark
made, re-made on the veneer of this ménage —

the rust on the old photos, broken glass, wiped
tabletops and dust motes on the couch (that still
carry the shape of me), all fervent to clutch & grab
once more at my oft-broken, and remended heart.

.
© Anmol Arora

Image source (Homecoming by Kinga Ogiegło)
For Wordy Thursday with Wild Woman: Homecoming at With Real Toads