merciless hull

​

we argue like it’s a cheap bar game
played with clean hands and hungry smiles.

you sit there…
all razor-mind and calm eyes…
and i come in hot with my little speeches,
my pretty theories in heels,
my logic held together with spit and hope.

​

and you don’t raise your voice.
you don’t even look pleased.
you just take the thing i’m saying
and turn it once,
like a key in a lock,
and the whole door opens
on how wrong i am.

​

it’s brutal,
the way a ship doesn’t hate the ice…
it just keeps going,
steel jaw,
merciless hull,
cutting clean through my frozen certainties
like they were always meant
to crack.

​

i watch you do it
and something in me leans forward.

because this is your tenderness:
not the soft kind.
the honest kind.
the kind that won’t let me keep my mismatched theories
just because they fit me well.

​

i throw another point at you,
a little sharper, a little desperate…
and you catch it,
like you’ve got all the time in the world,
like you’ve been waiting for me
to bring you my best mess.

​

and god,
it’s the best flirtation i’ve ever had…
this sparring,
this elegant violence,
this slow undressing of my bad arguments
until i’m standing there
with nothing on but truth
and a pulse i can’t hide.

​

i don’t want to win.
i want to try.
i want to be brave enough
to swing
and get cleanly disarmed.

​

because losing to you
feels like being chosen…
like you’re saying:
come closer, think harder, don’t fake it.

​

and when you land the final cut,
when my logic buckles
and i’m laughing at my own defeat,
i feel it…
that bright, shameless heat…
the thrill of being undone
by someone who sees straight through me
and stays.

​

you don’t touch me.
you don’t have to.

you just look at me
like you’ve already won
and you’re still hungry.

​

and i go quiet,
ruined in the best way,
wanting another round,
wanting your mind
right up against mine,

again and again,
until i’m nothing but breath
and surrender

and that gorgeous sting of it…

how exhilarating it is
to lose
to you.

​

© Sreedhari Desai