It's summer, and there's sunlight here,
A summer poem
...golden enough to kintsugi this city.
under the sun, there is nothing to hide,
there is nowhere to hide,
unless you cast a shadow.
i tie the tie the way my father never taught me to
and remember my neck,
i touch my throat, check -
if i am still the speaker
and make myself silence to scream in.
now I am ready. ready to be
every sacrifice he left behind.
if my words as they claim possess no weight,
why do I keep sinking, without a buoyant fate.
no, no one knows my best words
live farther than they lived yesterday.
is that -
Because we are scarce in love,
and scarcer still in courage.
Because redemption is small,
but the world is smaller.
Because a blade of longing,
stacked upon itself multiple times,
makes my mother-
tongue, in which the word for love is 'poem',
sorry autocorrect, 'prem (प्रेम)'.
Because this circus I built,
I built with love.
Because they know pain pressed into english letters,
makes weapons of mass destruction.
something i'll never lose is everything i've ever lost,
enough to build an ark and protect the truth.
so every year, with the candle, i blow my dreams away
to make room in my head
for something truer.
under the sun, there is nowhere to hide,
laying on the green,
with summer's worth of kindling on my chest
i feel the ground warming up
and then it arrives - my life
like a wildfire born from the forests it devours
so I stay still and forgive myself.
About the Creator
Mesh Toraskar
A wannabe storyteller from London. Sometimes words spill out of me and the only way to mop the spillage is to write them down.
"If you arrive here, remember, it wasn't you - it was me, in my longing, who found you."
Reader insights
Outstanding
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Compelling and original writing
Creative use of language & vocab
Easy to read and follow
Well-structured & engaging content
Excellent storytelling
Original narrative & well developed characters
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The story invoked strong personal emotions
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Writing reflected the title & theme
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ravenous AI
I can’t die this year, nor the year after; absolutely not. I want to read, read more. Not for pleasure, but to dam the constant stream of thoughts that overflows every time I witness a sunset imitating a painting or breathe in the scent of petrichor following April Rain.
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Comments (6)
This was brilliant. I really enjoyed it!
Congrats! Masterfully done!
Eeek! Runner-upppp!!! Congratulations, Mesh!
“So I stay still and forgive myself” Holly crap those are some gut-wrenching final words. It felt like you reached into my chest and squeezed my heart. Such melancholy. But in the best way! No good poem ever left someone wanting. I’m wanting, but not for more pin pricks to the heart, but rather it makes me want to hug my Perry the Platypus pillow pet 🥲.
Mesh, the layers of depth in this piece are almost overwhelming with the all the raw emotion that was tangled into this poem. I love the melancholic feel of it, this was so beautifully written. Great work!
Oh my gosh, Mesh, like everything you’ve written, this is amazing. I have too many favorite lines. Let me see if I can find a few that represent how much I love this poem. "no, no one knows my best words live farther than they lived yesterday." Wow. I feel this one. "i feel the ground warming up and then it arrives - my life like a wildfire born from the forests it devours so I stay still and forgive myself." How did you come up with this? It’s gorgeously profound. And I love the contrast between a conflagration and a moment of stillness and forgiveness. What a beautiful creation. Excellent work, Mesh, as always. Thank you for sharing this. Now, I’m going to go work on my own summer poem, which will not even enter the arena that your words play in and inhabit.