THE FINAL DRAFT
I’ve started living after my death!
I was killed
Some four years back—
Stabbed and drowned!
’Twas a shallow stream;
I quivered out,
(Ah! Blessed ghoul!)
Was yet again
Earth-bound
With the hope
Of new love
And assassins
For my carcass soul!
I’ve lived and died
Many times
In my secular half
And your non-religious (w)hole!
Faced umpteen deaths,
Say, in Mohenjodaro,
And in the Mayan age;
I’ve died during
The Turkish independence,
And when I was a sage
During Mughal invasions.
I died even more
As a Naxalite
During governmental incursions
In the ’70s!
But I didn’t call you
Soft names,
Neither said that I love.
It was a truth
I didn’t want you
To know.
Never said I love you
Since every time I loved,
I died,
Just as I died today
In your moment
Of stray stars,
Say, a moment
Of forgottance!
But you must live.
And do live long,
That I may die again
In your dirge,
And return as a love-song!