Dark Chocolate

The day she stopped believing

Was the day Vishnu pinned her down.

She left the festival in search of solitude,

Choosing empty streets over the lights and laughing children.

He watches her leave,

Watches her slight hips slide slightly

With each lilting step,

The flashing lights shining off the sequins on her back,

Slender arms clasped in front of her.

She walks alone,

Walks until the music dims and the full moon brightens,

Casting dark shadows on empty houses frozen in silence.

She walks faster towards her own.

He follows her,

Follows the bent head trailing down to a dark plait,

Its tail swaying lightly as she gathers speed.

He quickens also,

Lightly treading along her dirt footprints,

The outline of her body becoming more defined.

He waits until he is close enough

To smell the faint scent of rosewater on her skin,

Waits until he can hear her shallow breaths

Press against the darkness,

Waits until the soft flesh of her neck

Is just within reach,

And he grabs her.

She screams as he pulls her down,

The sound echoing through dark windows.

The dirt clouds around them as she struggles,

Her arms forced above her head,

The bottoms of her salwar yanked down,

His crude fingers forcing their way blindly

Between constricted thighs.

Her eyelids clamp together as she yelps with pain,

Toes curled and calves tightened as he forces inside her.

She looks at him once,

Sees the blue paint on his face streaked with sweat,

The plastic headdress gleaming gold as it rhythmically moves

Back and forth in the pale moonlight,

The soft petals of the rose garland around his neck

Caressing her skin.

She closes her eyes,

The smell of haldi and sweat inflaming her nostrils. 

Wandering sleepless along a fir-lined path,

I walked towards a light

Onto a small fire

And two raccoon smoking hookah. 

They lay on their stomachs, 

Backs basking in the fire’s warmth,

and puffed mindlessly,

Blowing jets of smoke into the night air,

Filling the wood with the sickly-sweet scent of berries.

I thought myself rather quiet,

But the pair quickly ceased their idle chatter

And turned shiny eyes to my shadowy tree.

The large of the two motioned me forward,

And offered me his pipe, growling,

“Come smoke with us.”

And so we three sat,

And the raccoons told me stories the whole night.

They told me about the camel with ten humps,

Who carried all the Sultan’s wives across the Arabian Desert

In a single night,

And who drank water for two days straight after.

They told me about the blind lioness

Who mistook a meerkat for her cub,

And taught him to hunt,

And about that meerkat, 

Who formed his own pride in the Serengeti. 

They told me about the ostrich who,

Frustrated by his failed attempts at flight,

Dug his head in the sand,

And the heat of his anger

Turned the sand to glass.

They spoke late into the night,

East story held between puffs of sweet smoke,

Until my eyelids became heavy with sleep,

And my head light from smoke,

And I woke the next morning besides burnt logs

And the sweet scent of berries.