Desire And Despair

20.5x28.5 inches; Pen drawing on handmade paper with watercolour wash (Click on image to enlarge)

Those cards

Boxes of chocolate

Smell of your soap

On my birthday

The touch

Under the blanket

A strand of your hair

On my pillow

The movie ticket

Our hands

In the dark

Mouths

On the roof

Sultry afternoons

Rain drenched

Like the crows

Sound of

Punctured bicycle tyre

Of pleasure

Maybe guilt

Surely Pain

Caught under

The mosquito

Net

Of desire

To learn French

Do French

Seduction

Wine on our

Skin

Thin veil

Of modesty lost

Liberation

In a bathtub

Dancing

Naked and sticky

‘Baby skin’

Whispered

Tickling my ears

Leaving behind

A trail

Sorrow

Of holding

Hands

In public garden

Eyes flirting

Mouths watering

A shared cup

Of ‘Irani chai’

A bite

Of jealousy

On my nipple

Dripping

Honey words

Poetry

Of laughter and

Longing for

Despair

Heart break

Distrust

‘Dry your tears!’

Bitch

The world

Never ends

To the music

Of dance beats

Sweat

Circling

Measuring

Teasing

Pulling each other

Groin to groin

‘kambakht Ishq’

Old monk

In my vein

Passion

In our loin

Kissing

Till the faithful

Are summoned

Morning prayers

Warm embrace

Enchanted sleep

Deception of

Separation

Distance untraveled

Unwanted

Complications of being

Uncomfortably numb

With failure

Dejection

‘What went wrong?’

Nothing went right

Expectations

Stifled and buried

Dreams

In between

Right and wrong

Flows a river

Of longing

Infested with

Ghosts

Drowned possibilities

Piranhas

Of guilt

And a leaky boat of

Salvation is slowly

Ferried by despair.

- Rudra Kishore Mandal