Heat,
runs over my neck
slowly crawls around
tracing the insides of my
sleeves, lingering for some
time on this shawl,
grey and brown,
borrowed and bold.
Heat, gets into my earlobe,
kisses it, and stays,
makes a home inside,
lights up a campfire.
Warmth, that is what
longing feels like
even on the coldest
winter morning,
it feels as if you are
inside a cave
and outside the Siberian
winds are blowing,
But inside you are
warm, holding your
hands over a bonfire,
packing firewood for
tomorrow, and waiting.
Longing feels like
waiting, covered in
concealed, but
beautiful.
Heat runs
over my hands,
it makes love to
my fingers,
and I can almost hear
the tune of a song long
forgotten,
a place long forgotten,
a person I used to be,
a person long forgotten.
Heat, runs over my lips,
it smiles, and then it
leaves,
as I take the shawl
off and wear it again
this time tighter
because the cold has returned,
a cold long-forgotten
has returned.
This Night Owl Original has been authored by Yastika Sharma, co-founder of The Night Owl Writes.
Sree Harsha Nelaturu is a deep learning researcher working on efficient deep learning algorithms. He previously worked as a student researcher at the MIT Media Lab, RunwayML and Rediscovery.io. He also enjoys working at the intersection of Machine Learning and Computational Creativity via Generative Models in text and vision. The one-of-its-kind art for this piece has been developed by him using "Big Sleep" approach with code provided by Phil Wang, building on work by AdvdNoun.