please, could you linger a while longer by the door / the porch / your car
& we could talk about nothing while the world finds their
breath and caramel toffee love? please, could you linger a while longer
while i piece myself together and hold on to the last murmurs of the fireflies
in my belly? the sunflowers have gone to bed & the bread is only just done
cooling off on the windowsill, and y(our) palms have made a promise to
always live in each other's shadows. and come back inside before the rain
grows heavy, come inside / not for long, only until the smell of jasmine fades away
and we can remember when we threaded ourselves together & how we wove
a line over a line over a line / to keep from falling over the edge, together until the end.
but now, all we see is the fire crackling inside / don't go yet, there are still so
many things to remember & so many memories to create.
Maitreyi Parakh (she/they) is a teenage, Indian-American bisexual poet from Seattle, USA. Her other hobbies include screaming into the void about Anne Carson's essays, listening to Lorde instead of doing calc homework & baking with way too much sugar. You can find more of her work published or forthcoming in Thimble Lit Mag, Southchild Lit, Paper Lanterns Lit and Serotonin poetry.