Ashish Kumar Singh

Love Is a Middle Class Thing

Do not think, he says and smiles.
I notice his hands are bigger
and can see the work he does in them,
the dirt buried deep in lines
where destiny should have been.
Once he told me he wanted to paint,
to color the faces of his family
with soft beauty only happiness
brings. But now he makes houses,
placing one brick on top of the other
until it reaches high enough
for the sky to be called blue again.
Do not think, he repeats
and enters me. When I told him
I had never done it before,
he said he would teach me, said
contrary to his nature, he would be
gentle. Now, I can hear my heart
as though it has been placed outside
and if I look through the window,
I know I would see night slowly
patrolling the streets. Instead
I take in his face, the contours hard
in effort and I am overcome with pity,
thinking how even pleasure is an
effort, how nothing the world gives

comes easily.

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Ashish Kumar Singh (he/him) is a queer Indian poet whose work has appeared in Passages North, Chestnut Review, Fourteen Poems, Foglifter, Banshee and elsewhere. Currently, he serves as an editorial assistant at Visual Verse and a poetry reader at ANMLY.