Shreya Sikka
The waves feel like your fingers
I have always been ticklish.
But this time, I don’t move.
Why I Hate Math
Eight beers cut through
your polite veneer
and you admit I’m a five
Two glasses of wine
I hold your hand
and tell you you’re a nine
All together
the alcohol downed is ten
But if you try subtraction
we are a four.
quid pro quo
I am a ball of tears.
There’s a drop on my arm,
another on my cheek.
Two in your dal,
a waterfall on your chest.
I’ll pay for the dry cleaning
if you pay for my therapy.
If I Could Eat Up Your Words
I’d start with the ones you mispronounce.
I’d sneak a taste of your tongue
while you slid the first word into my mouth.
I’d chew it softly while you watched
then I’d whisper it in your ear.
Once I’d be done with all your words,
could I have you for dessert?
Love in Bombay
is impossible to find.
Everyone is on their way to somewhere.
There’s no room for you.
On days you actually find 100 sq ft
the city drowns.
When it rises back up
you’re drenched.
What you give
no one asked you for.
What you’re given
is taken away the next day.
In the city of dreams
Love is a nightmare.
Shreya Sikka is a copywriter and poet from Delhi, India. She has an MA in Writing for Performance and Publication from the University of Leeds. She binges on crime shows and wine, loves talking mental health and astrology, while on the constant search for poems that emerge out of her quarter-life crisis. Her debut collection of poetry Bouts of Morbidity was recently published on Amazon Kindle. She has attended three writing residencies and been published in various anthologies. You can find out more about her on www.shreyasikka.com and her musings on @boutsofmorbidity.