Keep me, keep me in love
in bonds of joy, milk and honey.
Keep me as the grains of sand in your palm.
Keep me as an ocean-tide
crashing into you
breaking your bones as if they were shards of time.
Keep me held, captured, contained.
Even as I break the holding vessel
and then join it back with the all the fissures
perfectly aligned in liquid gold.
I know the wild ones who know the importance of breaking
in the histories of making.
The wise ones, they look at the green light before walking
The wise ones, they crave insurances of life and history.
I walk on the shore crashing crashing
breaking myself into granules and oyster-shells
and you hold me in your palm
As a child would hold his beach-treasure.

…

Atreyee Majumder is an anthropologist and writer based in Bangalore.