how sour the buttermilk between my thighs

coriander-dashed with a doubt of if evers

bodies shawled from gazes that burn maps

a morning of fear hushed only by the possibility

of being awake during the darkest night

how many stars in a braid is enough to hide

skeletons of firewood at parallax with minds of arson?

how many stars must we shed to not gather more blue planets?

enough is a curve that never plateaus

& order is a necessary human mess

six voices in a braid drink chai & breathe

through the cigarette smoke about kafka

you raise a finger & punch a hole in the smokescreen

it stays there even as everything else passes

like a polestar in a sky being swept away like

a patch of a past-piss-stain on a thick blanket

i stare at the polestar it reeks of piss

this is home i don't want anything from it

~ ajay

10/4/2021