Facing The Music Poem by Meena Kandasamy

Your lover was lynched
For one of those readily available reasons.

Too weak for suicide, too mute for murder
You live. Post-traumatically, poetically.
You live as if he has never died.

Shell-shocked, spellbound, your third eye
Clamped shut to keep the nightmare away,
Your blood bears the salt of withheld tears.
Never do you mention that your man—so alive
Even when being set alight—was humbled
Into handfuls of ash and defiant bones.

You turn deaf to face this faulty music,
You sacrifice all sleep to live this fragile dream.
You've sworn to never let him wander out of sight.
You hold him captive in your shattered,
Unwavering world and he, like a flame,
Ceaselessly flickers, so your eyes too dance,
And your moonglow in his ghostly presence
Makes poets sing of how, once upon a time,
Beauty basked in the light of her undying Love.