Title – Love of a Woman
First, hand her the money-
crisp notes folded like promises.
Then layer attention, love,
the slow grind of your own labor
in the heat of the act,
until she lowers herself
like monsoon rain on cracked earth,
a goddess touching barren ground.
Is anything missing from her plate?
The question rises, stubborn,
because her hunger never sleeps.
Yes-offer respect too,
pulled from godowns where it molds,
rotting in the dark for years.
Let this small creature feast on it,
obligations checked off,
courtesy neatly dispensed.
I stand sweating in July’s furnace,
bathing in my own heat,
in a world where knowing oneself
changes nothing,
yields no coin,
only dust.
They run on endless fuel-
hope, imagination, prayers, empathy.
Just follow.
Preparing rights feels like polishing rust.
Character gathers dust on the shelf.
A clean heart weighs you down
like wet clothes in rain.
A real poor man never learns money’s worth-
only the shape of his own shadow.
Yet he loves, he labors,
hands her the bills
so she might return
something she swears is priceless.
Worse, somehow,
than wearing her skin.
One more thing she lifts from him-
I almost forgot.
Ah.
The shame.
She pockets it neatly
and names it a gift.
She asks for the world
in careful installments,
then sends the final invoice
straight to the soul.
Respect decays in storage;
she revives it only to devour.
In her quiet addiction,
shame becomes the sweetest hit-
and he keeps paying
for every slow drag.
The poor man trades his last coin-
dignity-
for a crumpled receipt
stamped, in fading ink,
“love.”
