Three Poems by Ayesha Siddiqa Khan

 

Salt

How does salt do it?
Lose itself completely
Imbue water with essence
Food with taste,
Pickles with fire?

Into the belly,
Emerging on the skin
Taste it on your lover,
Find it sweet and pure. 

In the tears
It manipulates its need,
Too little, you want more,
Lots and you're bitter
In the mouth, in your soul.

An ever-present entity -
Air of coastal shores,
Dry beds of barren lakes.
Essential, insignificant
Yet, retains its identity.

The biggest question of all is,
When salt enters water,
What is its emotion?
To say a final goodbye?
Or give birth to an ocean?

Red

If you've already decided to taint me,
I insist you colour me every shade of red.

The rouge on my cheeks
Could be my rightful indignation,
My dreams - rubicund,
too intense for your pale sensibilities.

Maroon could be my depth,
something you'll never reach,
Scarlet my words
that leave you red-faced.

And my blood? Make that crimson.
So dark, that drop by drop
it can dye the flowing drape
of your ignorance a jet black.
Blinding you forever.

Leaving you no choice
but to taint me.
So, colour me red.

Stay up tonight

The mountain cold crackled
It pickled our bones.
Surreal. Dream-like.
You were naming constellations,
tracing the shape of The Orion
on my bare shoulder.

Crooning the song of your childhood;
sad-happy, filled with beach sand.
An elk spied upon us,
while I hummed the chorus.
You’d guffawed at my tuneless tune
Just at the moment I reached into your eyes
and stole embers,
from your incandescent, purple soul.

I would do anything then.
Even promise to depart, forever.
But please don’t ask me to close my eyes,
not tonight.
Let me drown myself
in the depth of the half-moon scar
I gave you.
Right above your perfect eyebrow.
Get drunk on my guilt,
carry it around, like
a blood-swollen mosquito.
With no chance at atonement.

Let me stay up tonight.
I will die in the morning.

AYESHA SIDDIQA KHAN is a Writer and Artist from Bangalore, India. An ex-engineer, she has worked in the Content domain for a decade. She is currently a Content and Marketing Consultant and splits her time between India and USA. Her artwork has been showcased in Shoes For Baby a book of poetry by Steve Sibra, published by Swallow Publishing in 2022.