In this poignant poem, Gopal states that morphine provides solace amidst hunger and suffering to keep love alive, exclusively for Different Truths.
I ate garbage day and night. In those days, if I was lucky, got leftover cold rice and salt. that would make my day. All were visible and all illusive. I had a bigger heart than anyone. then my lover was there. we used to share our food. we had no money. We did not count our pain. Once or twice a week I got beaten black and blue for stealing hot biriyani or lukewarm Chow mien from roadside food stalls. My heart was tongue then. All the love is gone now. We lived on our miasma, the morphine of our cracked bones. half for me, half for her. My heart cannot go on any longer. I do not know, then, how much one hand is like another hand, the hand that torments or rights our wrong. Hunger is the only story I know.
Picture design by Anumita Roy
Gopal Lahiri is a bilingual poet, critic, editor, and translator with 33 books, including eight edited volumes. Anthologised in over 150 journals and anthologies worldwide and translated into 18 languages across 17 countries, he has received the Setu Excellence Award, a Pushcart Prize nomination, a Best of the Net nomination, the First Jayanta Mahapatra National Award, and First Prize at the 43rd World Congress of Poets. His Selected Poems was published by Classix, New Delhi.
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