The Lure

28.5x20.5 inches; Pen drawing on handmade paper with water colourwash (Click on image to enlarge)

I set my eyes on yours. The opening to a primal dance of desires burning on eyelids, a toe less tango of wits. It’s an invitation which entices and liberates notorious hope into a magical trance. You play elusive, I play right into it. I try to learn by heart, every fluid move of yours; the mocking arch of an eyebrow to the smug curling smoke at the corner of your lips. I devour your words like the tempting apple of Eve. I scoop up a handful of your shadow and breathe in the aroma of a lonely bed. I brave indifference, aided by the allure of your vulnerability. You panic like a child in a dark room, left alone with a fantastic monster under his bed. I pluck you up and hold you to my brotherly chest, caressing your frowns away. My chest expands to house the triumph of taming the devious stallion. I grasp you in a sickly sweet embrace. My tentacles coil around you in a possessive knot. You mimic my act and I believe you reciprocate. We build a cocoon with the fragile silk of imagined sanctuary, a delusional sense of power and invincibility in each other’s arm. All worries fall like shooting stars. I am lulled into a state of bliss, my hunger satiated, like a python after a huge meal. My inertia renders my thoughts impotent. I slowly sink in your quagmire, ignoring the odour of deception swirling around me. When I am neck deep in the bubbling cauldron, realization dawns like the last breath before death; you have led me through this dance, a sacrificial goat to be beheaded at the altar of love. I go under and am engulfed in you. I disintegrate in your cruel hands and experience a perverse pleasure. I had set out as a predator and ended up being the prey.

- Rudra Kishore Mandal