A Non-Violent Loss Of Recall Poem by O Sudhir Janardhanan

There was nothing violent
about the death of your thoughts
from my memories.

We moved so very imperceptibly
to the far ends of a bed, slowly,
we once made love on.

Enamel etches on my skin your passion
Welts, spots of blood sprouting
reminding you of a crime, glistening

I espy right over your heart tattooed
with some blade, scratched
Disjointed nicks joined to form a name

The faceless unknown
That you mouth in passion, pain.

I sense the person
in every moment shared with you.
In the pauses between words too

The name flitting, an alphabet fallen off a word
seeking, fitting into sentences in fleeting
Lonely, to find its niche wishing

Love is an agony revisited, uninvited
when even space and time conspired
maintaining in our hearts distant expanses

Is there anything violent
about the death of thoughts of us,
except the wounds that we passed along...