Here’s a poignant prose-poem on love by Deeya, in Different Truths. The intensity, pain, and sensuousness come alive in her poetic lines.

The futile weather-beaten pen failed to portray the agony she had been through. The tangerine sun took a dip in the western ocean and for a while, all turned Auburn. Just counting the numbered pages of life she scraped the rotten ones and went steadfastly descending the dungeon. She safely carried it in a china bowl, her marshmallows of love. All through the elusive years, she had been looking for it in the ashen pages of a pretty consumptive life. Battling for it every time she lost the ground and it continued to haunt her. Delirious and painful she hovered from one pit to the other only to find herself vanquished. The red hibiscus in the garden bathed in the fleeting rays of a dying sun, seeking refuge in dreams. She felt a sharp twang of pain, of a kind of jealousy that gave the sinking sun a sudden velvety splash, an overindulgence. Its sheen was descriptive of her inner essence. A thousand thoughts flooded the mind and vied with each other for revealing themselves. Some snow-capped some smoldering- Oh! The shifting paradigms. Somebody was calling her over the phone she couldn’t discern as her mind was too placid for a moth-eaten response. The flippant twilight benumbed her. It was more than serene. The iridescence ushered by an apprehensive moon ate up the qualms in its wake and my palms gathered its rays into the clean still air. She could not have done more than that- a question of life and death it seemed an innocuous pleasure. Luna sent her pristine rays into her blanched soul. She sang the moon and madness. She hung it around her neck – a crystal. A thousand stars prophesied their destiny each time they bowed to touch her feet. Her vagina created history. The trees could bear semblance to the fruit she birthed – an avocado, fig, pine, or eucalyptus didn’t matter. What mattered were the countless ramblings of a sensuous heart and an insane mind. These were the ramblings on the dog-eared pages of a crumbling love story.

Picture design Anumita Roy, Different Truths

Deeya Bhattacharya

Born in Durgapur, West Bengal, Deeya Bhattacharya has a PG in English Literature and a Graduate in Education from the University of Burdwan. Her poems and articles have appeared in several national and international journals, websites, and e-zines, besides several anthologies. Member of Poets International, she has read her poetry at quite a few fests. She teaches English and Poetry at a State Government High School.

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