Unfamiliar faces, incessant squealing

Where have I come?

Humans unrecognised, places unknown

Relations I don’t care for

Broke free and ran away

Felt lost and looked lost

Where have you brought me,

God?

 

You took it all away

Oh, what have I become?

Apathetic and numb to the world, I trust no one.

Looked twice and judged twice,

Felt nothing and sensed nothing,

When did you turn me into this,

Mother?

 

Stood there watching it all,

Why didn’t you do something to stop the pain?

Disbelief and anger crept inside;

Hope lost, Emotions lost

Pain beseeched, Regret beseeched

Why did you do this to me,

Father?
Never spoke a word of it

Why didn’t you talk about it to someone?

Maybe, I was scared

Dread filled, Misery filled

Blood drained, soul drained

What have you done to me,

… … … ?

A.D.

I built pillow tents with you,

But you vamoosed without me.

Oh, the rhymes we’ve sung, the drawings we’ve done

how could you flee?
I want to run away from my responsibilities again,

Go back to that park, then come back to take a nap

Oh, Peter Pan knew it already,

That growing up was a trap.

Harshita

Broken shards of glass

Poke at the shattered remains

Of her vivid fantasies

The piercing sharpness of reality

Draws blood from her delicate skin

 

So she builds on herself layers

In the likeness of a Russian doll,

Matryoshka, she became hidden

Her core securely protected

By a fortress of countless walls

 

As time runs its inevitable course

Even fortresses crumble and erode

Demolished slowly, her meticulous craft

Began its lingering tumultuous tumble

 

Oh, babushka

My sweet old lady

Where are you?

Where are you?

Where are you?

Varna

In the journey of life,

many people come and go…

Some Friends some Foes.

 

Give your Foe a thousand chances

to become your Friend

but don’t give your Friend

even one chance

to become your Foe.

Sanyami

Wisps of sandalwood smokes

Whispers of the soul sing

Shreds of its powdery scent

Float around the room,

Engulfing it with the lingers

Of a cozy hindu altar

 

Incense sticks sit perched

On a clay holder

Its body is etched with cursive designs

Orange marigolds fall next to it

 

As palms are pressed together before it

Eyes shut as prayers are murmured.

Varna

I’ve written about Love a little too many times

But you must have asked,

“Don’t you get tired of writing and talking about it?

Why is love so overrated?

Why do writers dream of fairy tales

when all they describe it as painful?”

 

And my answer to you is, no.

 

Because love is the very fibre of humanity;

Love breathes, and love lives.

Love is happiness and sacrifice, all at once.

Love is a choice and a necessity, all at once.

Love is beautiful and messy, all at once.

Love is fire and ice, all at once.

 

No, Love is not overrated.

 

How can it be overrated when it is the one emotion that binds every important person to you?

 

Love is what keeps you, me and every one of us hoping:

 

Hoping for the ability to forgive

Hoping for a better tomorrow,

Hoping for a happier life,

Hoping for a perfect partner,

Hoping for a peaceful world.

 

No, I do not get tired of falling in Love.

 

Because I don’t think Love is what I am tired of;

Heartbreaks are what I am tired of.

 

Love doesn’t hurt you,

Lies, betrayals, and cheating does.

A.D.

Two sides of a heart

An odourless smell swept away the railway.

Friction abolished, the engine roared alive.

While springs coiled up in a rage,

Bells came to life, minutes before death.

The fire scorched the crooked metals,

And, the unshaped, the unformed alighted.

Forgotten, the victims cried in agony –

Mortified by the terror of laughter.

Still, the culprit’s identity unknown.

They hid in hindsight,

Yet their shrieks rang out into the ears of the weak –

Those who begged and begged.

Fear, they chanted.

Fear, they craved.

Fear, they savoured.

They locked it inside an unkempt well, an abysmal depth.

The corpse of their heart pounded, alive.

“A heart for a heart is better than an eye for a heart,”

They said.

Shannen