Akhil Katyal recently began his doctoral studies on same-sex intimacy and autobiography in modern India at SOAS. His previous works have been published in The Chay Magazine (2008), Quirk, Poetry Scotland (2009) and Flare: A Collection of Short Stories (2007).
—
How do you compare
How do you compare one lover with another?
Do you prepare a checklist of lovable things
and then count the scores of each?
Who would win – he who closes his eyes
when he thinks, or the one who blinks;
he who is rude, incorrigibly rude, but must
win and keep the favour of those he meets,
his love for them taking a detour through
himself, or he, who sensing defeat,
would quieten at the right time, his words
sincere while they last but finishing too early;
his hair, they have a light whiff of lemon
if you come close to him in bed, but
the other, his hair fall on his forehead.
—
James Dean look-alike, come let us have an intrigue?
James Dean look-alike, come let us have an intrigue?
The next time I speak, interrupt me
casually so that no one thinks you care;
love me more than little but do not bare.
For my part, I will hold ground; the moment
you say something bright in class,
I’ll put you down with a clever example,
and you will pretend to doodle in your notebook.
I will choose my words so, no one
will know. They would humph and haw,
they would shake their heads in despair:
‘What a clever pair,’ they would say,
‘and yet they fight like teenagers.’
but they would never guess
we love like teenagers too; like boxers woo,
circling each other before the match,
holding the game for a second or two
they wait, or like stupid animals who do
a show of strength before they mate.
—
Would I be compensating if I sit opposite you today
Would I be compensating if I sit opposite you today,
for the last time we met, I had stolen your thought
and added to it more, more than all you could think,
and left you in that awful state
when someone says the thing you always had in mind
and that someone says it so beautifully, he makes it his;
now all you say sounds vicarious,
now all you do only pushes you closer to a surrender?
Or would I be inviting you to another round,
sitting opposite you this time, not to win or lose;
to call truce, for surely there was something left
from the last time that has passed over to today?
—