Gravestone

I will ornate the gravestone and come out of
the graveyard of our dead love,
the love that wasn't meant to be.
It was a bastard 
with cute little hands 
and real eyes.
It was a little baby,
I wanted him to grow,
brave adversities,
go to beaches,
build sandcastles 
and watch them getting destroyed
by huge waves that batter the shore.
But people started talking,
I killed my bastard.
Now I have puffy eyes,
I ornate myself and go out.

#METOO

This is a story,
No these are facts, some feelings which I never vented.
How you talk about Oprah Winfrey who was raped in her childhood
Like she is an inspiration
No, my dear, it's a matter of pity. How small girls are molested and how
I was molested.' Oh, get over it. You have been touched many times since then'.
Oh, mind stop. Stop being your own enemy. Stop telling me Robin Williams committed suicide.
Since then, I too anticipated my death. My suicide letter will look like an apology, would it? Or a testimony against the world? I don't know.

So I grew up in different cities. Each had their own skyline and a different story woven so intricately. I felt like a refugee seeking shelter; never accepted by the natives
I stopped sleeping. Insomnia happens to great writers, they said. So I think about Virginia Woolf who died by drowning herself in water with stones in her pocket.
I have gulped down those stones. They weigh me down from speaking up.

Murphy's law

What are you afraid of? 
A heartbreak? 
That our hearts will be crushed
Into fine pieces and some parts
Maybe will get lost
In hustle
What do you fear? 
I will get too close 
And see your demons
You will see mine 
They might sign a treaty
Thus no we wont be able to save ourselves from havoc
Or they might call a truce
There are a million negative possibilities 
Murphy's law is important
And so are our hearts
So decide 
Let your heart decide

STAY

'I told you' 
Yes you did
'Not my fault' 
No it isn't 'timing is bad' 
Yes blame everything 
On a man-made concept 
I spent nights thinking;
wondering what will happen, 
If I curl myself in your arms 
I know you told me;
To wait 
And yes, 
We must. 
But I fear
You will ghost
Desert me, 
Turn into a memory. 
And this fear will not. 
A poem written to describe 
This situation can be erased,
My fear cannot be. 
Grammar can be incorrect, 
Your words can't be. 
So I say,
Irrespective of status 
And tags 
And social constructs 
And distance
Curl me in your arms,
Mean what you say. 
Know what you are getting into 
And STAY

The locked room

This is not easy
I am locked in a room
The windows are black,
And there is no door.
A locked door is better,
At least chance of escaping persists;
But here I am 
Away from world 
But worldly pleasures touch me
Emotions are abysmal 
Maybe there is no room 
Maybe there are thousand windows 
Maybe all is an illusion 
There are a thousand possibilities 
But you retain what you see
And all I see is your wrath taking me away
And pushing me into 
This room with high yellow walls and unbreakable ceiling

The traveller

A traveler sometimes walks with his head towards his back’

The screeching of brakes interrupted me as I read these lines and I stared blankly at the raindrops splattering on the windscreen of my car. I thought about all the places I have been to, those which fill my itinerary and how congruous these words are with my journey. I looked at some kids who were celebrating the music made by the raindrops and derived terpsichorean pleasure and then I took a gander at a child who shivered by the footpath, perhaps with loneliness or the fear of being laughed at. Or maybe I was thinking too much. Maybe he was just sitting on the footpath waiting for his parents or he had a common cold.

I again thought about the statement which I read some seconds back. Or maybe I was thinking about it all the time. It’s so enigmatic, the way a magical combination of some words creates a mold in our head. We start searching for its meaning all around us. The meaning or an ethereal hint that a line penned down by a person sitting miles away or who lived years ago supports our life so perfectly. Or perhaps an empathetic line has a different effect on all of us. This again brought me back to the crux of the statement, I was thinking about the child by the roadside because I was searching for my reflection. Why do we ponder so much about our past that we try to experience it again in subtler forms? Sometimes a wave which batters a calm shore suddenly inundates the whole atmosphere in the gushing water, similarly our past leaves us perplexed. We carry that enigmatic, perplexing, charismatic and troubling puzzle inside us. We try to unravel it through the new clues which we discover on our path. The more I progressed on my path, the more I understood the old villages I visited, the old memories I lived.

I stopped the train of thoughts and realized how some moments are so ineffable. No, not the complicated ones when you are dancing in his arms or when you are on a vantage point of a high hill. Rather the small moments, when nothing significant eventuates. It’s so easy to describe the moment of grandeur. And then I realized that how we express ineffable moments through symbols and allegories.

The reptile

I won't stop...
I will stand in long queues,
Wait to train my will power.
Social anxiety is a groaning reptile.
It has wrapped me.
Now I am asphyxiated.
But I will wait.
All metaphors will lose their shine,
But this reptile won't die.
'Sing a song'; I sang like I was punishing myself, 
For having a melodious voice
'you think a lot'.
No, I just talk a lot to this animal.
If someone lives with you;
You converse, you are generous.
Maa, sorry for not introducing you to friends,
the snake hissed that-
your poor English will let me down
Sorry,this snake writhered me,
squirmed me,
controlled me.
And now I dont know 
how to survive without it...

My black dog

This is not a joke. 
Or a proclamation of the Lords.
Not something spontaneous or compulsory.
It starts like a butterfly flaps her wings;
With you imagining your own funeral.
No it won't end there
You will become a poet
Then a reader
And then everything will stop.
No it won't redeem your hidden talents
You will forget all the special words
No punctuation mark will ease your pain.
Breathe, they say
But you only breathe toxicity
You shake walls 
You hold a teddy bear
You ask for help from inanimate matter.
Because the real ghosts are people,
Not hiding under your bed.
They dwell in your brain.
You hear them saying
'not good enough',
'this is wrong'.
And you? 
You just want to take your brain 
Out of your skull and crush it

// inspiration: I found myself talking to walls that antidepressants don't work//

The Void

I can't vent out
Vent out what?
This abysmal void inside me
knows no words,
Maybe its tongue is tied
Even if it has a voice
it refuses to speak
at least speak to me. 
I squeeze its neck
and I feel suffocated
It doesn't speak
under duress
This is debilitating.
I feed it restful things
I switch on 'self-love mode',
I take a long shower
and now, I sit naked
looking at my ugly body,
wishing this void didn't exist.
But maybe then, I would not exist.

The Mausoleum

The weather has got into me
It gets darker and darker
The clouds of sadness cover me from all sides
Oh! Take me in your arms
If our love dies,
I will engrave it in a mammoth mausoleum
Cover it with white and red roses
White for peace your love gave me
And red signifies our turbulent love;
this brings me back
to think about these clouds
Soon I will dissipate with them too
Soon everything will...

TETRACHROMACY

I heard about tetrachromacy
People who see a thousand colors
I wonder how that might be
How beautiful roses are for them
How horrendous night seems to them
Then it struck me...
I too feel too much
I feel something
Which is
Ineffable
I see dreams
In colors which you don't fathom
And I crush them with objects you can't imagine
So is it same with everyone?
Maybe we all see different colors