A Roommate

Bhavika Sachan, India

I was locked up in a room
that opened to a black lure of forest
where dogs looked at my window,
with bright, sharp eyes
waiting for me to fall down any moment,
and become their prey.

I saw the ghost streets from up here,
lit up with blotches of floating lamps,
lanterns on ice-cold waters,
a mist of emptiness traveling
in the blank thirst of eyes, blanket of dead
aura, crestfallen on sad hands.

I saw the dumpster sit wildly
next to the overbridge of passing shadows,
a lone crown, tasting of rotten flesh,
cats and crows, with their eyes
blood red and belligerent bright,
snapdragons blooming through
forest silhouettes branching out
bare, ugly truths.

I saw a murder of crows
hawking from the transformer wires,
some madness of survival, carnivorous desires,
supremacy of their lustrous eyes,
all colors of days mingle in their feather coats,
an inevitable return, home to black clutches,
the nemesis of a white eagle,
his wings clipped away in gray
by their terrible beaks of change.

battles, loss and pain,
I am too frail for these
and thus, locked away.
I suffer from want of human touch
like a lost body spiriting away,
in an old library of memories
discarded for fear, away from feelings,
a lingering thought dusting away
in a room, none dare to open.

a punishment I chose not,
a draught I didn't conjure
but as someone's end of bargain
to live with himself,
in that dumpster, on those streets,
amid false gods and glories –

tell me, then
will you be my roommate,

more so, can you be one?

Bhavika Sachan is an Indian poet and author of the book, "Maps Called Souls Are Hard to Trace." She is the recipient of the 2019 Elipsis Best Writer's Award. She has won writing contests organized by TELS and WDC, University of Delhi. Her works are previously published or are forthcoming in Unicorn Magazine, VAim Magazine, Feral Feline Literary, On-the-High Journal, Blue Quill MH anthologies, the Graveyard Zine, M.etch Newsletter, the Pinnacle Palette Blog, and elsewhere.