It is so deep in the night

That if I walk through one

I might not get to the other side.

The road goes through a keyhole

Sits on sharp pencil tips

And waits for the right words.

I sit with the solitude

Of an astronaut trapped in space.

The night is so deep

That it has no other side.

The centre of a word

Is sometimes surrounded by

An abandoned house,

Around which other discarded words

Gather like ghosts of previous occupants.

By the time, I’ve strung them up

In a sentence

Like rebels at a city square

For public viewing, 

My notebook has already become

A mass burial ground.

Panic is generally

The colour of empty pages

Lying outside the doorstep

Basking in the winter sun. 

Stretching across the circumference

Of that very word,

Men like me, sip our evening tea,

And meditate on a poem like this

All night long.

The toaster has thrown up.

The alarm that had been snoozed twice

and the coffee beans- hard, as immigration rules-

lie scattered, 

waiting, 

for a perfect hangover

before they walk towards

their expiry dates.

In a room too small 

for sunsets,

I sit by the window

and watch a city,

absent on every map, 

Become a river.

The streets that play

hide and seek with the traffic lights 

Come wandering 

inside my head and set up tents.

In the end, I sleep 

with my fingers on 

the zippers of the sky.