घुड़सवार

it’s not so much as the elephantine

couches from my childhood,

which i swear still have rat droppings from the 90s,

not even the valentine’s drag you adorn,

the pots in the new kitchen, the wrought iron,

not so much as what we own,

what’s working and what’s broken,

the in-betweens where we often find ourselves,

nearly coming apart, privately doing so,

the fish curry on the stove, me choking on the black pepper,

your sweet smell of washing powder,

not so much the sleeping in separate rooms,

the silences, the owl outside,

a child wailing downstairs, the smell of exhausted desire,

a beetle crawling on the floor, the weight of the world

and the philosophy of endings on its mind

as i bring down a shoe on it,

not so much as all that, as my longing for you.