1. emerald green: i had my favorite song on loop that morning when i first laid eyes on her / she was scribbling her heart out in that empty bench of our colony, under the laburnum / my eyes immediately fell upon her green painted nails and the silver ring she wore on her thumb / “do you think that i need someone to watch over me?” she asks, looking at me / “well feel free to say hi” i grin back at her / i never said her name aloud to anyone but i swear it tasted like popsicle-kissed smiles on my tongue. 

2. prussian blue: my name in her mouth melts like a dead poet’s metaphor / comforting in its own way / i remember her tiptoeing across the hardwood floors of bookstore, casting a soft smile upon the verses that caught her eyes / i shove my hands deep inside my pockets and look down at my shoes trying hard not to melt in the moment / the sunless august afternoon called for showers / i can still picture the moment when she leaned against my shoulder as we watched the downpour outside / our fingers intertwined a few moments later and there i was memorizing every moment that followed, falling harder than the raindrops on the windowpane. 

3. zinc yellow: the summer songs rarely go unnoticed / i run my fingers by the edge of the ceramic mug, slipping deeper into the silence / happiness blooms in her voice as she says about the letter she received from her beloved this morning / i breathe every moment in; memorizing every bit of her / her fingers trace down the alphabets and her lips curl up to a little smile / the pink in her cheeks carried his name / she holds his letter close to her chest and whispers something silently, ending with a smile / my heart pleaded for summer but i was drowning in my set of winters again. 

4. yellow ochre: it has been seven summers, twenty-eight poems and a handful of breakdowns ever since this town has felt her heartbeat / i often find myself in places she blessed me with, trying to relieve every bit of her (or us) / i smile at the same old bench at my old colony where i first met her, find myself tracing down raindrops from other side of the windowpane / i unknowingly tilt my head now—in every hello and goodbye / there is a pink tint in the sunset today and my mind here crawls back to the day she received that letter / “so this is how nostalgia is supposed to feel” a familiar voice speaks up / i turn back and there storms my most eagerly awaited hurricane—inside me. 

5. burnt umber: the air carries a hint of agony today / she tucks another stray strand of hair behind her ear / pale, slender fingers running along the edge of her silver jhumka, making their way back to the soft fabric of her beige dupatta / the sound of the ganga echoes in my ears as the sun leaves a crimson hue upon the river / my gaze shifts to her wrists / that old set of rusted bangles still hold the same promise / she clasps her hands closer to her chest, heaving a painful sigh, or maybe a silent sob / i follow her eyes and tell her we should go home / she closes her eyes, refusing to stand, and says, “i have spent 38 years of sunsets with him but today, this sunset feels like a thousand silent deaths—”

“—i don’t think i can make it home tonight.”

6. cobalt blue: i am a patchwork of grey skies / upon another heartbeat, i am just a soft drizzle / but when i hear the sound of her heart, a hurricane storms inside me / and i happily embrace it / i have memorized every bit of her and have crafted them as poems upon my skin / metaphors reside in my bones, sighing about the way she tucks her hair behind her ear, the way the sun melts in her deep brown eyes / the way she concentrates on raindrops running down the windowpanes, the way she tilts her head while waving a goodbye / unknowingly, she started to reside in my breaths and i, i started to look for the hurricanes she blessed me with.