The Beast

The beasts ask for

A Ballad was written to decorate

The ground on which your footfalls

Are heard ever so delicately.

I mumble about the

Dark grey sky clouding your temple

And about baggy pockets

Where two-rupee toffees fill

The unoccupied space inside.

But,

When you sit up to follow my gaze

The beast’s gasps and hides

Beneath the bare-naked trees

Of Aravalli.

How he resides

In our silent arguments over

Who will reduce whose flesh?

To sand this sunrise

Perchance you might wish to

Lend me your ears today,

I have fresh sets

Of vile, harvested from

The beast's tongue.

All these memories invested in

Gripping the tale of the beast together.

Nothing more to submit to its pouch

Of hunger. Except of course

Our conversations

Winding up as my hand's embrace

The time on your wrists.