If you say his name slowly,

it sounds like the title of a porn

but he was the most uptight man

I ever fell in love with.

He complained about everything,

incessantly about Delhi and London.

Sometimes I would look at him

until he stopped talking.

We thought we wanted someone else,

but both nervous: another train, another city,

a different job, someone else’s kisses,

someone else’s dream.

It wasn’t until the last minute,

when he asked me to hold him

that I understood, how terrible it must’ve been:

to not be understood.

The night after he left, I searched his room

for a sign he might’ve forgotten,

the raw heat of his dark lean body already

slipping through time.

23 October 2019