#Poetry ‘A Bottle Of Blood Red Wine’ by Fiza Pathan

A Bottle Of Blood Red Wine

By Fiza Pathan

My love and my dearest one,
do you remember me in the hour
of the dawning of our love
long-lost to the vultures?

I cannot forget you
and your promises which were empty
as this glass of red wine that I’ve been drinking.

I drink heavily to remove your image from my mind
but the drug like liquid acts as a stimulant to make me
remember our love now dead, like the corpse in the grave.

I roam about the streets drunk and confused
─everywhere I look I see your impression
which makes me want to cry.

It’s been seven years since we have broken the bond
that would have lasted a lifetime, but alas,
our love was vanquished by the demon called circumstance.

But this demon couldn’t kill
my adoration for you dear one
─it has distilled all our sweet whispering
into a glass of blood-red wine.

I say ‘blood red wine’ for you have no clue
what your old lover has been upto.

When at the pub the wine was poured
into my crystal clear glass
─silently without anyone noticing,
I cut my palms and squeezed
its life-giving redness
into its superior ─ red wine.

In pain do I remember your sweet smile
and in agony do I recall your touch
─all culminating into a glass of red wine.

The Lord of our lives said
that ‘blood is the life’
but I tell you dearest
that for me, life is blood.

And why should you call me a witch
because I stir the cauldron of my own blood
to transport me towards the steps of ecstasy?

I am as much a witch as you are a lover
─not a phone call, nor a letter
nor an email or an SMS
to tell me that you live and breathe
just like my red wine does with the liquid
of my empty veins drained into it.

Nervous have I been of late
and wounded are my poor arms
that a blood clot has formed under my flesh.

Yet I shall go on drinking my red wine
till I get a letter from you saying
that you miss me just like I miss you
while I’m stirring the sugar
in my salty red wine.

So what if you now
are a family man with a daughter?
So what if you are bonded to your wife?

Intrinsic love is the purest love
which I have for you
as I drink to your health
─my blood filled red wine.

Platonic love is a love
that lives on forever even after death.
So shall my love for you live on
even after my blood till its last drop drains
the colour of blush from my cheeks
─into a bottle of blood-red wine.

Image courtesy: http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/5494