(20 January 00:59 a.m., St. John’s Bus Stop, Koramangala)

The past tense is so severe,
it induces ourselves
to us.

I’ve been in love with
you, I said
to see a chicken running around
                                       with its head cutoff

It was as unmanageable
               as an egg dropped raw
on my kitchen floor—

with a first line by Chana Bloch

…

Winner of The Great Indian Poetry Contest 2018, Tuhin’s poems appear in Bacopa Literary Review, Narrow Road Journal, City 7: A Journal of South Asian Literature, mutiny!, and elsewhere. He currently serves as a Poetry Editor at Bengaluru Review, Sonic Boom Journal, and Yavanika Press. Tuhin tweets poems @secondhandsins.