Satya Dash | The depressed person isn’t allowed to ask questions | Poets Resist

Satya Dash's recent poems have been published or are forthcoming in Passages North, Cosmonauts Avenue, The Florida Review, Pidgeonholes, Prelude amongst others. He spent his early years in Odisha, India and has a degree in electronics from BITS Goa. He has dabbled with short fiction in the past and been a cricket commentator too. Now he lives in Bangalore and recites his poetry in the city's cafes.

Satya Dash on Instagram

Also by Satya Dash: Intimacy All at Sea Three Poems

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Poets Resist
Edited by Kwame Opoku-Duku
September 6, 2019

Satya Dash

The depressed person isn’t allowed to ask questions

How are you feeling today? I’m okay, just a bit sad What’s just a bit? quantification is dumb, I’m trying to feel something Are you a depressed soul? listen, depression is meniscus every god made soul possesses a degree of curvature possesses a crescent unknowing what happens to gods who craft souls? some weld with soil so mad — caked in dust, transmuting to salt breathing black flame of night turning muscle into peril peddling intimacy with lava bitter pill with candy Ok, close your eyes and tell me what you see petals awning silent fingers, discarded wings, unnamed nape veiled, torn paperback gone bile yellow, an old crush’s cream bitten tongue Oh only sad things? hey I don’t think you know the way you say sad infuriates me more than my sadness ever did Tell me something that has changed in you I’m affected to the unrounded edges in me from nature’s bounty or unconscious touch I’m easily attracted these days my thresholds gone Do you sleep well at night? tell me, can I vanish like I do in the plunging climax of my dreams?