Quiet

Please, stop.
Be calm, quiet yourself
slow your hurried feet,
that I might find the path
up your narrow roads
that this fool might jump
and fall deeply into your skin
that taught me the stars
Into your voice
that lends sunlight to every morning
Into your arms that held me
when we stormed the summer palace.

So please, my sweet prince
rest here,
wander these halls,
and steal away my heavy eyes.
Like night, the ocean,
and the holy beast of every toke.
Like a knelt prayer,
palms meeting face
on dropped knees and fallen grace
searching the faithless
for a glimpse of the trace-less
in the far flung howl, and the returning thunder
and the choir of spring magnolias
in a honey-soaked breeze
In a bright storm of pages
and the reef of sunken ships
taken root in my lungs.
Like the flower that grows up to my lips
to speak your name
I search for you.

Fingers riding rusty veins
into jagged pores
and cracked jaw bones
into shaking sweat
I ache for you.

So hold me still,
keep me steady,
grab me tight
like a handful of seeds
and a chest full of flowers
touch me softly,
keep me safe
till the days of winter,
and the frost-blue cold

For when it is all dust and dreams
I will scour the ruins of your words
to find the hole you once filled.

Let it drain the silver from my tongue
that I might hear your voice,
and finally, sleep softly

They call me..

The way you say my name reminds me that I despise it. It's too strange to be relatable but not exotic enough to be attractive. It's a construct of hard, rolling r's with a slightly too long string of e's trailing behind it.

Praveen.

I fought and won a war against that name, set against the backdrop of my social circle and schools, and it was a genocide. Half of it disappeared overnight. I compacted it down to it's smallest possible profile, as if making it smaller made it less repugnant.

Prav.

When you say my name you remind me that I hate it, which is strange because I don't hate it when you say it.

It falls from your lips like a dance. Like a drop of paint. Like an ounce of fire-light.

You make the hard r sound mystical, and you hide the awkward e's inside the most sensuous way you pronounce the n that sits at the end of the whole mess. You make the v in the middle feel at home.

So, to the world I will remain Prav, the name I pin to my chest like a battle scar.
But in the corner of my quietest heart I will keep the sound of your voice and the memory of my hated name.