Submerged Continent
Fingers pull at sunlight, warm and trembling,
curling it around small, unstoppable palms.
Dust sparkles in the air like fairy particles,
twirling and whirling as if the sky itself,
is shaking secrets like sprinkles just for me.
The carpet folds beneath bare toes, soft as moss and rough as bark,
each step a drumbeat in a forest of my own making.
The tongue tastes words as they form, sweet with dust and sharp with soap,
syllables ripening before they leave the lips.
Shadows slither across walls, curling and uncoiling,
following the hum of laughter that trembles in the throat and spills like water.
Torchlight puppets move across surfaces as I narrate stories of beasts and wonders,
I have not yet lived to see,
yet they feel as real as any game of pretence,
as real as the tents I build and the villages I raise,
from mats and bedsheets, with soft toys aligned as citizens.
All puddles tremble under my boots, reflecting clouds that wink and wander,
a leaf pirouetting from nowhere, a stick humming secret music,
and the wind pressing soft against the nape of my neck,
telling stories in a language only skin can hear.
Knees bloom with tiny triumphs, trenches of scraped concrete,
deepened by running barefoot, but nothing my mother cannot coo away.
My hands remain sticky with juice and glue, ears wide for the scrape of a chair,
the creak of a door, the whisper of pages, the symphony of ordinary miracles.
And still, my eyes open wider, drinking the tilt of light,
the smell of wet earth, the shimmer of moving air.
The world is alive, trembling, waiting for nothing,
but to be touched and tumbled through by little smiles,
a submerged continent rising just for my delight.
Copyright ©
Pranali Vg
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