JYNI VERMA
We’ve built our love on endless toxicity
Burning the roses but keeping the thorns
Dancing mechanically
On a bed of jagged glass.
We pull and push and struggle
Our hands bleed from the strain
Our voices hoarse from the cries of despair
But it seems I can’t stop
Chasing after you while hiding in the shadows
Calling your name but running from the echoes.
Maybe our bridge is a phoenix
Rebuilding stronger every time I try to burn it
I complain but I arrange the bricks
It’s all I’m able to do.
The callous cruelty of this paradox
Tugs at the strings that keep me from falling apart
The very strings that form a rope
Like a noose around your neck
Making you choke and gasp for air
And in the ensuing struggle
You remember to avoid death
But forget to fight for your life.
Our relationship is too twisted to be smoothed
And it’s too twisted to break.
Ever after is a curse
Together forever a bane.
We can’t let go but we can’t hold on.
We’re cuffed together in a way that it hurts
The key is too out of reach
We’ll only be free when one of us chops off a hand
And it’ll be the other’s albatross.
I think I’m willing to pay the price
But who has time to get the knife?
We’re so engrossed in our war
We’ve forgotten the goal was to end it.
Our bond is a poison that’s slowly killing us
Yet we’ve been cursed with immortality.
A strange kind, where we have no time
The clock is always ticking.
Fuelling each other’s life
Seems to have a heavy price
Running out of eternity
Eternally.
Running out of time to die.
Jyni Verma (they/them) is a sociology graduate from Ambedkar University. They write
poetry full of angst and questions they can't answer, and turn angry rants into concise articles.
They have articles published in Feminism in India, and an essay in the Oxford publication
Gendered Voices, Feminist Visions (8th ed.)