Pauses

Pauses

Some afternoons are quiet. The stillness of the jasmine on my co-passenger’s hair smells of South Indian weddings I remember going to as a child. There is a serenity in this silence; When half this world is fast asleep, the other half is awake in pockets of the earth, like loose change trying to find a corner to melt in.

Vasanthi Swetha

Sometimes, I think I am part of that pocket, counting from 1 to 100, my lips meandering through the whispers of my mind, treading into a void that sucks my voice in like the tunnel of a vacuum cleaner, leaving no dust behind in which to doodle my name before I fall asleep.

Some afternoons are quiet - The sun burns patiently in the company of other invisible stars, As sweat drops roll down my neck

32 Yours Truly

and settle on the edges of my collar bone; my ears shut out everything but the solitude of these moments that freeze the waves so I can watch a sea that looks like it might break open anytime. This second carries the softness of silk: this precious quietude of the universe pauses for the blink of an eye, before everything disappears into choreographed chaos.

33 Chaicopy | Vol. III | Issue I