the elephant and the dove (diego on my mind)

frida,

and wisps of dew caught in raven sheerness. your eyebrows and the silence that only, only lips can ever lend. silence that sinks like a heart into embers of burning bone.

my head on the meadow of your lap. sweet grass-spring bluebell breath on our flushed faces. one thigh fuller than the other. the religion of your body that swats away a wandering hand. a drunk mosquito. wandering mind asleep on your soft, supple skin.

frida,

your fingernails, cigarette-stained, in my cinnamon hair. rosy-tinted laelias and monarchs that flitter around your belly. and you. bathing me cloud clean, our skins bubbling in soapy youth. unsettled desires sit like pearls on lined foreheads.

you walk into the room. gold-tinted athena, a splendor only youngness can boast. each curve melting into another, blood strutting, veins taut. eyes of almond disdain and a certain knowledge that creeps into them (or did I imagine that?)

frida,

threadbare on satin sheets. chorus of breathing, peachy velvet lips, eyes locked. charcoal in hand, I trace collars, bones. knees without faces on them. moments spun into eternities.

ah, the boys in your cupboards. fresh fervor (or fear?) that coats the sweat on your clothes. yet your eyes that soften only at ancient ancient love, saintly saintly love.

oh frida,

footnote: inspired by frida kahlo’s 1943 ‘self portrait as a tehuana’, also called ‘diego on my mind’.

Abhirami is a high school senior trying desperately to grow out of herself. She wears words like overgrown sweaters, writes impulsively in lowercase and eats a lot of bread. When she is not doing any of these things, you can find her watching quiet, art restoration videos in her room. Or reading- she enjoys memoirs and flowy, descriptive language. In life, she wants to make quick money off a desk job till it becomes a bore and then run away into the woods, live like a recluse, and hopefully, write poetry for a living. Life to her, like it was for Murakami before her, is a constant struggle between coincidence and possibility.