False Tooth Poem by Mihir Chitre

I can't tell you how half measures
crowded my life after you left.
Always on the brink of this
or that, if the messages I typed
and did not send were people,
they'd give the Chinese army
a run for its money, and probably
ruin themselves too, as people do.
That I waited for you, all over
the world, was only natural but
hanging in there for a whole year
was stretching it. And in two years
I fell off the cliff

only to find out how overrated
reality is. If someday, I could
show you around this world:
you, still prettier than all sunsets,
should have a Sunday to yourself.
We’ll start with a slow cup of tea -
just as you like it – doing nothing
at all. You’ll then get ready
in a quick stroke of an eyeliner,
and I’ll take you to an overwhelmingly
ordinary place, where there’s nothing
external, you know. No friends
to tell you that I don’t suit you,
no fat managers to ask you
what keeps you with me, and
no rules to wrap me.
We’ll go for a walk then,
and I’d love it, if again,
we run short of money, yet
overspend. After conversations
that refuse to end, we retreat
into some place more private.
I light a cigarette, you eat bread
and peanut butter, come closer,
and tell me how long ago your father
picked strawberries in Srinagar, how
you played basketball in school.
And then the conjuring grin,
hustling past your false tooth.