Urban Dreamscapes

Anagha Smrithi 

the evening powders into violet dust. the sun is distant & dizzy.
the sky stretches out like imagination, like something from a dream.
if this was a dream, it would be quiet; the kind where nothing happens.
there is no story here, no chasing or falling, only that washed-out texture
of a dream, flushed and freckled, faded like a photograph of the rain.

a dream where nothing happens. there is no story here. but for a moment,
the city fell asleep and it dreamt up a sunset. in the half-dark of the evening,
our lives are dazed and flecked with pink. windows light up one by one,
the yellow flickering of lives shuffling, working late, hunched over tea,
lost in small arguments, heating up leftovers, or simply growing older.

maybe they all stir in this same violet dream, searching through the hush
of bedrooms and kitchens to find someplace familiar. the city fell asleep
and dreamt up a million lives. the world is slipping away and i let it go,
i settle into the dream. there is something relentless about imagination
how it is emphatic that there can be life, yes there can be life.

life even after this.

This work has been published in Beetle Magazine's August 2020 Issue.