Tell me I am dead as a fallen leaf…
Tell me that the weather will dry
me out, crack me up into brittle
shredded paper, and the chaff
will become me, like silt ready
to be drowned out in the flow.
Tell me I am dust shaken up
by the grumpy widow’s tirade
against the dilapidated furniture;
so I have nowhere to go but,
unceremoniously, in the waste-bins of
time, to remember she (the widow)
was betrayed by her husband, till
she cursed him dead over the hung-
up calls from a woman at midnight, in
times there were only homephones on
bedside tables and not mobiles that were
your truest companions! And tell me that
betrayal happens again and again
like old wine in new bottles, that you
still can’t resist the attractive packaging
despite the bitter aftertaste! Tell me I
am done, like as if eternity was a mere
moment from which I couldn’t have
learnt anything. So, tell me I am dead!
Finally, fallen on my head like lead!
