Kushal’s poem features a crow nesting within the speaker’s skull, symbolising internal decay and loss of selfhood and emphasising the fragility of existence for Different Truths.

The crow’s head materialises
from its recess through 
my eye-sockets. Inside

my skull, its neat nest, 
coils up warmth for the next
and the next of its kind.

Have you heard the constant 
flipping of a calendar?
Press your ears on my chest.

The crow goes back, my interior 
is its self-sustainable ecosphere.
It eats my heat, flutters around 
and sits on some nerve or organ.

I feel comfort and pride imagining 
that I am its day outside a shawarma place,
its cold-heart-serpent night 
for its panicking fledgling.

Press your chest against my one ear.
The birds should know that other skies exist.

Illustration by the poet

Kushal Poddar

Kushal Poddar, the author of ‘A White Cane for the Blind Lane’ and ‘How to Burn Memories Using a Pocket Torch’, has ten books to his credit. He is a journalist, father of a four-year-old, illustrator, and editor. His works have been translated into twelve languages and published across the globe.

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