My Elephant
Coach tells me to feed my rider, not my elephant.
Apple goes to the rider. Kheer goes to the elephant.
I keep the math clean. Elephant always wins. Rider fades into the unknown, simply because they were never known. To me.
I sleep with shame every night.
I wake up to half-plate. I eat thrice its measure.
I sleep with shame every night.
But this afternoon as the sparrow faces the sun and sings its complaints against the metal beasts, I move into a trance with my hidden water.
I see the elephant for the first time, in their entirety, just them and me. Their blue shade of lapis lazuli and deer eye so crystal clear to my memory, same as the one when I as a child in purple frock had extended my hands outside my balcony, and touched the head of the killer elephant, then repeated his name day after day.
We are are holding each other so tight. We are both in tears. We are walking after the apocalypse, next to each other, the only companions ever known. I am feeding the elephant their favorite fruit. I am eating a large slice of pizza.
V Paliwal
