Shiksha Dheda

Editor’s Note from Sudha Balagopal: The moon and longing create the perfect mood in this poem by Shiksha Dheda. Images, words and the layout itself create the landscape for experiencing the cold distance she writes about. I love that Shiksha’s poem is both a sensory and an emotional treat, with yearning captured and encapsulated in a most memorable manner.

I want to write about the moon
- distant-
-far away from my being.

So distant
• so out of my reach…
That its drafty breath can’t
graze my
flustered cheek.

On some nights,
the arched silver silhouette
kisses my fingertips,
caresses my wrists,

but my fingers
-yearning for an embrace-
hug nothingness.

I want to write about the moon
-distant-
-far away-

so far away that
I cannot see its
sunken, misshapen craters

sculpted with imperfection.
Tainted.

I want to write about the moon
-distant-
-far away-
the object of innumerable desires,
the conquest of eternal
lovers.

I want to write about the moon,
but I ended up
writing about you

-distant-
-so very
far away
from me.

Shiksha Dheda is a South African of Indian descent. She uses writing to express her OCD and depression roller-coaster ventures. Mostly, however, she writes in the hopes that someday, someone will see her as she is; an incomplete poem. Sometimes, she dabbles in photography, painting, and baking lopsided layered cakes. Find her on Twitter: @ShikshaWrites.