Arun Budhathoki

The charmer stands outside the door, thorn-hearted, shimmering in wolf’s skin.
Cupboards bear artificial children
I am the grandfather of wastes
Dump the rotten history on me
The door is hell-mouthed
Bringing in Lucifer’s legions
There’s a sound of hell
There’s a sound that pursues like hell
There’s a sound that kills you like hell

Empty is the room
Empty is the mechanical mind
Black towel hangs on the door, wardrobes stand tall shamelessly,
Black wardrobe exposes its viciousness, bed sleeps succinctly,
The uncouth carpet appears mild,
The furrowed blinds dangle showing the muddy diamonds,

The charmer sits inside the room, rose-hearted, shimmering in sheep’s skin.

Eight-eyed, eight-legged, eight-mouthed
Eight the number of hell
Slashes the petal eight times
Eight o’clock hell spreads cancer-like
I decay, decay, decay
Save me with your radioactive love.

I’ve kept your face intact, spotless, polishing it for 25 years.
I’ve kept it in the hour hand, in the monotonous creaks,
Under the dismembered shelf, on the scratched table,
Through the eye of a sewing sanguine needle
The face travels, swims, walks, flies,
The face acts like a face
The face is not a face,
Oh, yes, I’ve kept your face intact.

I’ve kept your face hidden, imprisoned, amputated it for 25 years.
I’ve kept it in the butcher’s knife, inside the mystified slaughterhouse,
Between the pig’s jaws, tinkling from the cowbell,
The sewing machine cutting and stitching the face,
Royal apparel, purple is the colour best,
I’ve used clothing chemicals, detergents, washing powders,
The face remains intact,
The face is a brutal history,
Oh, yes, I’ve kept your face intact.

I’ve nine fingers, one is an abomination,
I’ve drawn your face with that finger,
Drawn on the slopes of Himalayas, in the trails of Annapurna,
Blew it off in the dusts of Mustang,
Floated it on Koshi River,
The face is the number one stalker,
The face boasts for being evergreen, perpetual, inexhaustible,
The face is a history gone wrong,
Oh, yes, I’ve kept your face intact.

I’ve kept your face intact
And have smeared mine.

On the rhythmic chest

a whisper rolls

quiet, untraceable.

Is it me or the wind
making an illegal love?

I’m no ordinary drunkard:
I get drunk without drinking.

Your love is like
A Chinese toy—
graceful, harmless

I bought it without buying
You said it was for free
I was startled yet excited

I took the toy to my home
And locked it in the heart’s closet

I woke up this morn
And found myself dysfunctional.

A lovelorn Lilliput
Sketched his indifferent lover

He amputated her soul
And planted in the soil

It grew in splendor—
his blood poisoned its flavor

I had checked the label of
The toy that you gave me

That plant was its fragrance

This evening
A fire burns within me
I deny to be a hedonist

This toy in my heart’s closet
Is no ordinary:
It makes me to love without loving

Of day’s slumber the thud of discordant footsteps
Scream like your cold embrace I loathed always
The shadow of night tearing apart the unguarded heart
The scattered yellowish leaves finally smirk for not being lonely
The cold winds twitch the bones of love
Jeering louder than sounds from brokenhearted homes

Take a knife and cut the nerves of entanglement
Nerves of this bonded love
A tree in ripening winter with naked branches
Cut it and blood rushes out without a scream

We wear our masks and pretend to love each other
While we are busy cutting our branches
Bleeding without screams

In the distance I hear the footsteps moaning, choking
Longing for love that didn’t grow
Wasn’t it you that cut the branches of love?

Your face is the shadow
That blends with mine
I would give up all I have
To get rid of it
Your face is the shadow

Your face the tracks
That balance the screaming trains
Uttering icy words: freezing the sinews
Of love. Heartbeats shudder like a dying
Fish, the fresh air killing it passionately
Your face these monstrous trains

Your face this thorny air
Dissecting the faces of brute
Spraying acid on their nerves
Now acidic men walk on the streets
I smell nothing but acidic men.

Your face is made up of stars
Uncountable, distant
Now I slumber like these acidic men
Shadows cast over the sky
Baby-like
Crying for futile attention and vain love.

I was talking with tired winds
(they said they have become too old to howl)
When you were melting my frozen bandages
then before I could pour my wasted years in the hollow cup
You came before my vegetarian eyes as a shallow bride
And made me suck your laughing blood and smoky eyes
While I was calming my silver wounds
(they said they have become too old to howl)
You were leaving with vigilant winds

one, two
one, two

they broke ceaselessly

I can’t handle your love anymore
I cannot

Capsized in your laughter
The narcissist slept in its
Mephitic grave

On Friday the 13th
The bonybabes
Mesmerized it to be their
Masochist

I can’t handle your love anymore
I cannot

Last Halloween
The masochist revealed that
He had discovered ambrosia

“I shall make love with bonybabes
Ad infinitum
For they are meretricious”

I can’t handle your love anymore
I cannot

Last Christmas
The masochist
Turned victorious and revealed that
He was a sadist
No one got the jargon, his catharsis

I can’t handle your love anymore
I cannot

I’m jejune

I cannot handle your love anymore
I cannot
I only crave for more