LONELINESS, MY NAME

What dismal nights you dawn on me;
longing for hopeless company—
You meet me,
in the distilled shadows of my past
You creep in most nights
marring days of glee
with your benighted presence
Failing me never, there’s always that night you give me to remember

On most nights that go by, estranged,
You shake my hand
over a mutual feeling of recluse and revulsion
We acquaint ourselves—
“Loneliness, my name,
Solitude, my home”

You linger and loiter for hours
on the nights you choose to stay,

Brandishing the epithet of your self
Forlorn and deserted,

with you I bite into this obscure hiding ,
I helplessly cave in

Whetting our appetite,

in this late hour of a night

over the reasons you choose to stay.

– Shweta Kher