we are carving inside jokes

about tomatoes at twilight

in the backseat of my car

you’re wearing a bernie sanders sweatshirt

and the night is cold and ripe

and i feel alright and think thoughts

like life is loveable and livable

it takes 

      one evening 

                 with you

you dart your eyes 

at the street outside

your curls waterfall out

the mouths of lucky stars

i cannot believe i know you

but i am glad i do,

because

the night is ripe and it took

one evening with you 

to think 

tomatoes are funny and death is so overrated.

at the balcony of a coffee shop

the leaves sway in a reykjavik wind

and the smoke from my cigarette

blankets above your pretty eyes;

we are two people in a toor painting

and at a random 7 PM

you realise you can find

god, hope and glitter

in a friend and gospels

just begin to make sense

and the traffic slows 

and the air smells of cardamom

and you think you’re in

a quarter life baptism 

realising,

realising,

you are now on the table of people

you’d envy from another table 

you now calendar mark sundays

for soup dates 

and realise,

realise,

it takes one bambi-eyed mystical girl

in a bernie sanders sweatshirt

to understand 

that tomatoes are funny, life is loveable, livable

and death is so, so, so, overrated. 

---

Hussain Aamir is a poet who has been writing and releasing poetry, digitally and in-print for over a decade. his free-verse work explores questions of identity and contemporary takes on romance, friendship, and the self; often delivered with a sardonic, witty edge. he is the author of several poetry books, namely ‘oddball’ and ‘epic’, and plans to release his next poetry collection in the summer of 2026.