If You Aren’t Busy I Think I’m On Fire

Sreshtha Sen

After Wendy Xu

Harry Styles says “You don’t have to say you’re mine, just
let me adore you.” & most days I find this a little creepy
but lately, I’d like to know what it is to be held without
any carrying—the self a sky scooped
into every palm I hunger after. Last year, I made a list
of friends I would walk through fire for & then never
texted any of them back. Now I catalog care—the ways
of forgetting to say I love you but doing it anyway. This
has led to a discovery of the things I name care:
To ask of. Chai brewed so slow, I take a second
nap while it boils Shaking a water bottle to ensure lack
of leakage before I store it in someone’s backpack. Knowledge
of the ways one prefers living. I want to be everything
that can be said & given the way it needs to be.
On a dating app, under what’s your typical Sunday, they
write “In bed, good wine, firm massages, slow, fruit” & I misread
this to be an offering rather than desire. Let me adore everyone
& myself. Every Sunday, I practice saying no in three languages.