Dark sinister whisperings
rouse my soul up,
‘Every Tongue has a demon
buried within its veins, for
it gives birth to thirst,
lust and blood.’
She told me before sleeping,

Archaic hymns, butchered lemons
drowned in vinegar, disappeared behind
a mist of lavender smelling candles,
apexed at pentagram made of saffron

I feel her curves turn cold,
the lips turn ominously black,
‘Eyes are windows to this world,
darkness is the passage to all other’
she keeps murmuring,holding my hand
till it is not she anymore.

I could sense it the way my hands are touched,
the way she removes her clothes then
and the way she kisses.
She never told her of her fetishes
and now I can’t even ask.

© Shashank Bhardwaj