The absence of love

I returned to Vijay's guest house after my eventful camel safari. After freshening up, I took to my balcony, plonked down on a wicker chair and stared out yonder. I watched dusk fall and  listened to the call to prayer from a nearby mosque, while sipping the nectar of the gods(orange Fanta). It was such a simple, banal moment, but it was the kind that etches itself into your travel memory forever. As I enjoyed the simplicity of  it, an overwhelming sadness enveloped me. I was alone; Unattached, mate less, solitary. I have travelled solo a few times and never felt that itch, that clawing sadness before. There was something about that unspectacular moment that  illuminated my solitude. Perhaps it was turning  thirty, or the comforting/irritating Indian familiarity and the frequent questions about my unmarried status and comments about my eggs, beauty and youth that would soon expire. Whatever brought on my melancholy moment(which lasted about an hour and then I let out a series of rip roaring farts that made me laugh and reminded me why I was single), it lead me to write this piece of poetry. I think I'm only good at writing poems about pork, but I'll share it anyway.


The absence of love

Why do you elude me so?
Do I not deserve you?
I await with bated breath for your arrival
I await the flutter in my heart and butterflies in my belly
Your admirers so often speak of


But time does not stand still
How long am I to wait?
This bated breath  incapacitates my lungs
My heart, she murmurs, not flutters
My belly, she pangs with the hunger of unrequited love


Tell me, what am I to do?
I have searched for you
amongst countless unworthy men
Your tree seems fruitless, barren
I am told you are unsearchable
That you must find me
Until then...
I await with bated breath
An open heart
And a ravenous belly