Raj Dronamraju

I shook your hand
I took the loss
Escape was impossible
I took the loss
...

The hand of friendship was offered
The hand of friendship was slapped away
The trajectory of the spurned
...

We are the goldfish in the bowl
We are known as Mr. and Mrs. Goldfish
I don't mind this transparency, a benign surveillance
...

She is the queen of the replacements
Her people await further orders in a large open-air building
A former factory - old and gray and damp, it looks like the 1950's
...

Love sighted through an opening in deep forest
A blur that moves quickly and vanishes
But leaves a lasting impression
...

If obnoxiousness is art consider this your exhibition gallery
Different stages of difficult behavior hang on the walls
"Don't touch" but some illiterate fool usually ends up doing just that
...

Have you ever heard Saturday morning radio?
Is the radio programming different on Saturday morning compared to weekdays?

She dreads small talk and making his lunch
...

The team works together on projects but they are not interchangeable
Each does their one specific task in order like the different pilots on the old Thunderbirds TV show
With their different rockets taking off at different times from different spots from their secret base
...

It gets harder every day to tell the difference between a Star of David and a Swastika
Between Warsaw ghettos and Gaza ghettos
Between Nazis machine gunning women and children and Zionists machine gunning women and children
Between Guernica and Operations Protective Edge, Cast Lead, Lebanon, and others
...

I wish you loved me the way I wanted to be loved
And I wish you had my best interests at heart
Not as maintenance of living
Not as dancing with dollar signs in your eyes
...

My life has been defined by the things I could not get
The things I could not have
The things I could not achieve
...

This farmer's market opens at night
Not during the morning like the rest of them
The lights of nearby shops are a fuzzy pretty distorted outline
Pumpkin aura disbelief does not push an influence
...

The way I always go into voice mail when I call her on the phone
The way she's an hour late when we meet, I get up to leave and that's when she appears as if nothing's out of the ordinary
The way she talks of people I would never ever want to meet
She casts rebellion as a reaction against politeness and treating other people decently
...

This real life and you
And you said 'Let's get matching tattoos and run away from our cities together to a third city where no one knows us'

And I assume
...

I should know better than to think of you as a friend
Your gentle teasing, your needling camaraderie always has a mean edge to it
And what you tell other people I said and what they believe of this
Makes me enemies out of strangers
...

War clowns in victim hats
Those who have seen too many action movies
Those who hope to get someone to pay for their college education
The volunteer and the draftee - History will split the difference with sympathy
...

Melting Maryland snow feeds trickling timid stream
Noisily slapping stones as the furrow is replowed
Sun glints on the water's reflective state at unpredictable intervals
And what is underneath is visible only in glimpses
...

You are the dream and I am the lie
And the roles are reversible
The overcelebration of the two person shield
And in doing so they've sapped the strength of love
...

The dream rebel didn't come to take you away from all of this
You had to lead your own uprising which you attempted through example

You feel trapped by monochrome enforcers
...

I like to read descriptions of destruction
And brutalize my brain with truth
And now separate the well-constructed lie that is on par with and indistinguishable from the truth
...