Love Poem: Let Me Burn
Vasudha Rohatgi Avatar
Written by: Vasudha Rohatgi

Let Me Burn

Like the light entering a diamond, 
I cannot escape your embrace; 
you have trapped every breath of mine-
every part of me, 
torturously tucked into a glass showcase.

You’ve sipped my patience with a straw-
all the life in me, 
you’ve murdered, murdered, my dear! 
You’ve murdered with a smile on your face. 

Reflecting from the walls of this glass, are my memories.
Bouncing off the walls of my cage, are my memories.
Burning in the idle oxygen that I don’t breathe, are my memories.
Chocking the rationale of my mind, are my memories, 
of you.

They have devoured me whole, 
as I now drift through these chasms with walls that reverberate, 
with respect, disgust, admiration, contempt, love and hate 
for you. 

These are the feelings that rise in me; 
mutiny has inflamed the walls of my heart, 
it is you who cannot see your own faults,
the way you have scorched my skin, 
the way you have torn me away for my kin, 
the way you have cut me, limb from limb, apart. 

It doesn’t have to be this way, 
realize this, I cannot and do not want to stay. 
With demonic charms you had swayed me, led my heart astray, 
you abandoned it in one of your cells of hell, my heart, you did betray. 

So you must, through one way or the other, let me go, 
you could release me from your brute arms, 
let my spirt, with the wind, blow. 

Thus, you must, through one way or the other, let me go,
you could strip my lifeless body of the remaining fragments of my soul, 
let the remainder burn in the incinerators of the past, 
let the time drown out and dissipate the smoke,
no one will see me burn, no one will ever know.