the day everyone died

just the day before everyone died

i was diagnosed with a disease

that didn’t care much for drugs,

our rainy thursdays

were stacked somewhere in the folds of the clouds

outside my window -

i counted them

as the wrinkles that gave prominence to your forehead

as the one black spot on your hard palate

which even you didn’t know existed

or like the sounds slipping off your tongue

which normal people called breathing in a dreamlike state.

the day when everyone died

we embraced the graveyard lane, and dust-like reality, 

the air collapsed into dark seasons 

and was translated in a universal language -

we named it our-dirge; for want of a better word.

the day when everyone died, the day when we turned into ghosts:

we clung to a song,

reshaping words as the breaths 

escaping, becoming, birthing 

from our clasped hands; 

we clung to a song,

to bring back what’s dead.