Teesta Review: A
Journal of Poetry, Volume 8, Number 1. May 2025. ISSN: 2581-7094
--- Khadija Rehman
Lovers ruin the cities they loved us in.
When love ends, it disfigures psychogeography.
It
was in New Delhi where we first spoke of Emily Dickinson and Ghalib, where we
loved for one thousand days. In your Kashmir, I search for you with a lamp,
always in that turquoise pheran you bought for me from an old market. London,
the city you call second home, is where you parcelled me your old T-shirt from
during the pandemic. I would climb up the terrace of my Allahabad home to talk
to you while the dark September clouds still trailed their thunder. It was a
May night in Jammu when you kissed my cleft chin, and the memory of our
lovemaking lodged itself into my bones. You arrived in Aligarh for your
undergraduate studies, and a decade later, I walked around in your department
building. You flew to Warsaw for a three-day work conference. You often travel
to Helsinki for work. You pursued your postgraduate studies in Sendai, and once
gave me eidi, festive gift money, tucked inside a green envelope you picked up
from a local bank there. You frequently visit Tokyo for consulting work, and
grumble about the 14-hour flight. You once took a connecting flight through
Mumbai. At Prairie Lights bookstore in Iowa City, I asked an old man in a
cardigan for directions to the post office to courier the two jars of soy
candles to you. On an April afternoon, you delivered a talk at NIT Srinagar.
You once rode the train up to Edinburgh for a holiday. After your postgraduate
degree, you spent a few months working in Beijing. You flew to Abu Dhabi for
COP28 and moderated panels on climate change.
Sixteen.
You ruined sixteen cities for me in
three years.
According to recent estimates, there are approximately
10,000 to 20,000 cities worldwide.
What I am trying to say is—there are still thousands more
cities for you to ruin. Let me hand you the map. Can we please love again?
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