The Winter Months by Gautham Pradeep

Trying to sleep,
but butterflies fill me.
Every face I’ve known
seems sealed in my memory.
The trinkets of hair I once owned,
vine in the countryside.
Only if I could forget my past —
three pawns and an evening.

Three years and a pandemic to seal it in place.
Now I listen to the nightingale sing.
Dozing off with a deaf ear,
I hear her at my last breath.

Splashing paint on my cat’s impression,
I personify him as my saviour.
The painting lies on the wall,
her voice lingers in my mind.