j kumar
he’s been looking at my past and the scars,
he only loves the pretty things,
the flavescent leaves on the ground,
the flowers blooming by the riverside.
the red skies and orange sunsets,
the booming voices of the singers by the bar,
the pretty hookers standing near the theatre.
he can’t go everywhere,
scared to enter the dark alleys,
horrified after seeing the carcasses of my past selves,
covering his ears as the bombs explode near the woods,
running away in fear after seeing gorgons step out of the water.
an afraid young man
running for his life
from my mind
afraid that he'll fall in love,
that he won’t get to stomp in the grounds of other minds,
the dark alleys he saw will welcome him instead
and the gorgons
will greet him with smiles on their faces.
the hookers by the theatre will invite him in,
the singers’ voices will echo in his ear.
the skies will beg him to stay,
the leaves will remind him of us,
he will stare longer at my scars.
he’ll feel guilty about our past
but he will leave
because at the end of the day,
a tourist needs to go home