By Niyamsan Chhaya
I crave conversations
Not those
fleeting flecks of fickle fumbling's
Hastily pieced together
They call pleasantries
That guise themselves
as questions
But neither try to be pleasant
Nor wait for an answer
(They’ve spread like a cancer)
I crave conversations
Like those that can happen
in deafening silence
And awkward appearance
As two souls share a space
And engage in the soliloquy
Of shared experience
I crave conversations
That are punctuated
With someone crying
And then laughing about
How they finally could.
There’s no better feeling
On earth or high heavens
Than that of being
Understood
I crave conversations
Not the likes of “How is the weather?”
Or “Did you see the game today?”
But the kind that asks whether
You think you lived upto
your name today.
I crave conversations
For better or worse
That break through,
to puncture my soul
Making my calluses fall
Making me a better pers-
on
Not those words and
Sounds and surrogate smiles
That hold as much meaning
As a monarch
Ruling empty palace halls
With relentless recursion
I crave conversations
And I hope we have one
Through the page or screen
you are reading this from
But till then
(Perhaps forevermore)
If you crave conversations
There’s a grave correlation
Between your words
And the breath
they are carried on