The Day You Were Born

I heard,
it was a red moon 
the day you were born
The sky, exalted, 
crushed the stars 
and spread them 
over the black ocean
I heard, two of them 
took shelter in your eyes

The day you were born,
the waves inched closer 
to the land, to hear
your first cry
The kites swam 
against the current 
and landed at the door 
where your mother
held you singing lullabies 
The women in your village rejoiced
“This boy might just break hearts!”
and my gods exchanged nervous glances

The day you were born, 
was when somebody 
took a quill 
and wrote –
“The finest way to feel love
is to never have it.”
Van Gogh sighed
and painted his wheat fields 
the colour of your eyes
Neruda smiled
and wrote a song 
about people
who felt their most self
when broken in love
Plath woke mid sleep
and for a minute
felt the pain buried in her veins
was something she could
discard like yesterday’s dirt

The day you were born,
was when the universe 
wrote multiple deaths to my name
And I?
I took each of them 
with mad eyes of a devotee
who wanted to meet
not its creator,
but the star of its damnation;
You!
The day you were born,
was when they wrote my end.

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