Do you remember how secure the sand felt before?

Response to the poem “Sometimes, When Prayers are Shouted from Rooftops, Echoes are the Answers” by Aditi Rao

Response to the line- Do you remember the first slipper the sea sucked
off an unsuspecting beach—that blue disappearance? Do you remember how secure the sand felt before?

When you came into me that night I looked for the exit signs till I became one

I always thought I was your last prayer before the floor caved in, once a boy told me 

he took to his love to a temple and held her hand when she closed her eyes

kissed her way back home in the lift. Dazed, lingering, maybe 

this is what religion is. 

The first time I went to beach was for the turtles, second time for the way

the waves curled up around my toes, waiting to swirl ours skins under

Maybe I would have found Atlantis, Maybe I would have floated

till Antarctica on backs of Dolphins. Maybe I would have 

been lost before you could have 

become the gluttonous ocean, fangs out in the middle of Dadri. 

My skin seems to break open at all seams, every time the table touches my thigh.

every time I see your face my veneer turns pale, winter skin drenched in regret

soaked in shame for I couldn't see the sand slipping beneath the roar of the waves

I wait for gulls in Dadri to pick up the pieces of skin and flesh you took

I wait for them to come sliding down in a row squawking apologies.  

In between the wild grass and lovers who have tamed themselves to see the best

in each other. I hang on to the wet land claimed by the ducks on a vacation 

calling each other Honey, Baby, Love. I’m sure we have mistaken their cackling; 

for when I cant remember how secure the sand felt before, everything could be 

anything now. My heart could be another world for leaping, my body no longer a 

sour breath. Months stretching into skin of steel, no longer

a museum of exit signs

or a wound beckoning the saline water.