Once my lips
danced across the arch of your brow,
a tiny constellation was born ~
And in the very next breath,
the secret universe between us
was pinned to my heart by a thorn ~
Nestled within a cozy Unicode window,
Saturn and Venus form a trine ~
A little wildflower, a tiny butterfly,
flutters across your world to mine ~
That's when, inside my chest,
a thousand fireworks flicker and shine ~
The gravity is fierce
in a piece of cookie, a warm mug of tea,
or a slightly burnt vanilla cake ~
This stardust addiction
tugs so hard at my heartstrings,
leaving an aching black hole in its wake ~
As a nebula of anxiety swallows me
on a deep and dark midnight ~
that is when your name appears,
washed in the phone screen's white light ~
Just minutes before the end of an eon,
a brief eternity takes flight ~
I do not know baby, when,
nor do I have the slightest idea how
Our secret universe was born ~
I only know that, as stubborn as you are,
it is pinned to my heart by a thorn ~
_______
I originally wrote this piece in Sinhala (you will find it here) and casually dropped it on my Insta stories. Then a couple of my 'non-Sinhala speaking' friends reached out asking for the meaning.
Taking the trendy shortcut, I ran the original poem through one AI, then another, then another. But all three AI tools failed miserably to capture the poetic essence of it. So last night, I ended up re-creating it myself.
NGL, recreating this English version took significantly longer time than writing the original poem. I shared the first draft with 10 people, and 9 approved. So voilà, I'm publishing it on the blog!
So wdy think? Should I start writing more in English?
