Peek-a-boo | Bhavya Pardasani

BHAVYA PARDASANI

this is the story of my play date, a millennium long date

it had been a starry void (only you know if it was day/night) when i heard the final call “it. moon you’re the keplerfully play date of it. earth.” i wanted to whine, deliver a few centuries short rant about our cosmic ancestors playing cupid with a second-old but your greenish blues had me captured from first sight

my world’s been revolving around yours since my embryo days. anyway i swirl anyway i twirl, my craterous eyes only have you in my north-southeast-west sight. your children use me to serenade their lovers, and here i revolve elliptically in-and-out, in and out of your penumbra’s hindsight

i have seen you wax, seen you wane, sometimes gibbous,

sometimes crescent. but when you are new your beauty astounds me. (you might have donned the invisibility cloak but your children meander around like mechanised fireflies that crave my attention) then why must i be known as that white orb full of craters, and a thief that shines brightly on your crush’s borrowed light?

despite my existence you have been having play dates with it.sun (who is an eight-timing bastard with no shade). i have been your loyal revolver since millenniums, then why is it.sun the center of your universe? why do i feel like the third ball in gravity’s elliptical love triangle? am i even good enough to be a hindrance in your play dates with your crush?

Maybe i am meant to be that pasty white weirdo with big dark zits (i’m in my teenage, what did you expect?) who comes out at night

to pervertedly say Peek-a-boo.