Umang Kalra

EXPLAIN THE UNIVERSE TO ME, I WANT IT THROUGH YOUR EYES

i want the art deco stars you dream up out of flowers! i want to wear a silky little
dress and learn what you feel when you pull it off! i want to read you poems
and fuck you right after and learn how my hair looks in your fingers, i want to
know how my mouth tastes on your tongue and what you think of when i am
talking too much. i want to be your little grocery lists! i want to be your sky!
i want to become the sound of you laughing and the sound of your gasps and
the sound of your breathing and the sound of your dreams. i would like
to learn you from scratch. i would like to learn the insides of your brain
and know where to touch so that it hurts the least: i want to be all your
sad songs. i want to learn how a drink feels as you swallow it, i want to
learn how you feel as you swallow a drink, i want to be the ice you suck on
right at the end, i want to live inside the algorithm that watches you fuck me
online, i want to live inside the plant you water   without me. i would like

to drape my legs across you and watch you teach me the world. i would
like to hear your sorrow sounds: that’s what i get for not looking away.
i want to go to a party with you and be your favourite person in the room.
i want to go to a party with you and be your favourite person in the world.
i want to sit on your lap and watch the others be jealous, i want your hand
tracing down my back in the shape of my body in your dreams, i want
to change my bones to match the silhouette of me in your head. teach me
how to kiss the way you like it. i want to know what it’s like when i hold
your hair in my hands. i want to know what you think the world should look
like when capitalism is over. i want to know how you dream of the apocalypse.
i want you to call me your sweet darling while everybody listens, i want
you to tell me what it’s like to watch me dancing, i want you to tell me what
i taste like underneath my clothes. i want to spell it out for you: i am obsessed

with the way you breathe
when you kiss me
& when you don’t
& while you are reading this right now i am trying
to read the inside of your mind, i am obsessed with u like a little wax-winged idiot
that doesn’t know what’s good for them. i want to love you like the sun, so loud even
if it destroys us. tell me what it tastes like to watch me melting, and maybe
i will tell you instead, surprise surprise, i survived it all for you.