the collector - KAVYA KRISHNAMURTHY

the collector

the day you threw a glass jar at someone else i went to find you i told you you could have hurt him i asked you what if that had been me? you told me it would never be me and you asked me are you afraid? i said no not of you never you

you take photographs of flowers admire the violets on the ground the shape of a teacup you collect beauty carry it with you i know what it means to collect beauty i used to collect shells at the beach and then arrange them when i got home not by color or shape or size but by which i thought needed my love the most and i have lost all of my shells

because they were not mine to begin with i took them from their homes lonely child thief

dislocator i wonder if i have been collected the same way i took shells from the beach trapped in an old jewelry box left alone until someone is ready to love me in such an insufficient way foreign way to arrange me instead of letting the sea roll over me

carry me in and out caress me

i have displaced many things misplaced many things

misplaced you in the shelves of my memory among other things glass beads and leather bracelets and grief and broken shells and i have been misplaced too

placement is a perilous thing so i trapped you under and in between my ribs though i cannot feel you there anymore that bone is softer when you touch it hold me tend to me place me where you might forget about me soon where you told me that only i live let us collect each other like time collects death and like death collects dust

i seem to be only able to put you in places where you collect dust or shatter or lose yourself in whatever broken piece of glass broken piece of me i have forced upon you

let us collect each other like you collect violets and like i collect shells and hearts and hurt it’s the only way i know how to love i hope i have not made you afraid

you asked me are you afraid? i said no not of you