A Confession Poem by Ponniah Ganeshan

You need not kiss
This small heaped corpse of mine
You need not either
Hate my soul which confines to a huddled
Room;
I am tattered and torn by a
Thousand small things;
Into the repetition of my love and hatreds
I lost my legs to walk and tired
I am soiled and being hung
On a wall invisible high above.

When I am brought before you
I become loose- ends,
Slipping away.
Yet I face your outermost will
Of the determined love at times
The darkness
The darkness.

Whenever I look out
Only the street devoid of any stirring
Or movement
Comes across.
I can not count stars, trees and leaves
In this vast universe
And keep account.

I set fire to all shattered pieces
In my head within
The burning in a burning within.

My blackness thickens
When I am brought before a blunt probe
I am caught between your tyrannous pressure
And black resistance
My blackness thickens.