Aryaman Kakkar's Archive

The room still holds his rosebush cologne. Tainted with the scent of my sweat on his, the transition from  cold night air to the warmth of two hours hits like a brick fog. I tell my friend two continents away and  his interest lies elsewhere, stepping down from this monthly conversation as his voice goes lower and  lower, executioner's steps from the chopping block with my heart in the basket.  Aur kya bolun ? What else am I supposed to say? I thought lovers suffered no awkward pauses just naked  ones, we redressed each time. As if the memories of his skin on mine were any less when hidden under  cloth. He doesn't believe me when I said I was fully prepared just to talk. He was nervous. He said  Shut. Up.  It’s been years for me, he said. A former high school dropout, former user, former lover, his blinding love  takes the form of tattoo on his bicep and near the V of his hip where I trailed and wandered and made him  shudder. I can almo...

It started with the grass. Long, dancing, more laughter and scratchy kisses than this maze of murder many would imagine it to become. It was two months ago, and we had to get it cut short to the crewcut of a boy going off to war, you see the Delhites were coming home after a long long time. Tinder and dirt, it waited for the ending monsoon rains. The final tears of mourning are always the most plentiful, it is the last time you will whimper their name in pillow-clutching nights. It turned into the open doors. The AC was too cold and the night decided to free its dank prisoners, the autumn chill claiming these mottling cells as sunrise grew closer and closer to night each day, and night hid their shy love from view. One should always leave doors the way they found them; How naive I was to think that only held true for the forests and fae.  There is something primal about the shrubs outside your veranda door rustling and speaking in the night. You send unknown senses searching for in...

  Tenderness is the earth-bleeding hunger from my shining lips to open arms.  Darling, come. My lap   will be your pillow and I will stroke your hair as you fall asleep.   Tenderness is trampled and bruised as highways are   filled with foggy windows and shopfront profiles,   we are window-shoppers of love and we   prefer to admire pretty things from afar rather than going inside and asking for the price.  You are worth it my darling.   I repeat these words to so many men, so many   boys, these hands are still with power they hold. They   know what they must do and busy   days are stab wounds I wish I didn't have the knives to.   I'm sorry, I hope you can feel just how   sorry I am with these texts and emojis,   I am afraid that my love will be mistaken for judgement.  I am tired of bringing myself over hills of disappearing shopfronts: blocked...