The new house has parked itself

in the dingy basement of my mind.

The wooden bookshelf smells like Marquez’s bitter almonds.

Unrequited is the only kind of love, I tell myself.

Facebook corrects me instantly like that imperious teacher in school.

Pictures of newly married couples at Khar Social

or Olive or Fable are flecked with clichés

like “You gave meaning to my life”.

They don’t realise that life is as meaningless

as the omelette you forgot on the pan.

Why do we fancy what we fancy?

Every night, I think of at least one woman

who disappeared from my life like a suitcase in a suspense thriller.

A dog is fiddling with a bone of the shape of Italy.

I am itching to quote Dante in this line

but can’t remember a word of what he said.

For the whole day, I talked to carpenters,

and my maid into making better chapatis. Mother

urges me to find a wife. At the moment,

I can’t even find the keys to my drawer.

The night sheds its bra-shaped skin.

Everything seems editable in retrospect.

Love, to hell with Facebook, remains unrequited.

 

 

 

Mihir Chitre hates half measures. When he loves, he loves; when he disconnects, he disconnects.
He is the author of Hyphenated, a poetry collection published by Sahitya Akademi in 2014.