I wished I were like you

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I wished I were like you
Long haired, dreamy eyed
Graceful like a princess
Always smelling like a garden
Your chocolate complexion
Beckoning the sun to shine upon your skin.
I can look at you for hours
Would you mind?
No, you wouldn’t
You’re too kind to shun me.
Even though I offer bland company
You smile at my attempts to make you grin.

I wished I were like you
Your dewy face lighting up with glee
Always chirping like a little bird
Hopping in circles
Among your vast group of friends.
They adore you, and so do I,
Desperately wanting to be your chum.
Have a place for a boring mate?
I wish I could tell you
How stunning you looked
When you dyed your cropped hair blue.

I wished I were like you
A cool guy never losing his calm
Compassionate but funny
Tall, charming and goofy
Always entertaining your buddies
And stealing girls’ hearts.
I admire you
Your look of not-a-care-in-this-world
Careful not to brandish your deeds of help.
A true gentleman
A real friend.

I wished I were like you
Everyone knows your name
The gem of our college
Excelling in every sphere
How do you manage?
Guitar, basketball, debates
Even elocution and drama
You are everywhere, man.
It’s intimidating, honestly
But it must be great being you
A blessed amalgamation of virtues
You’re an example to follow,
My mother is proud that I am your classmate.

I wished I were like so many others
People I know
People I don’t
People I imagine.
Oh how I wished I were not me.

It’s different now,
Now that she has told me
She wished she were like me.
She, who I thought was the happiest soul,
The embodiment of perfection.

The grass is always greener on the other side.
You can’t escape yourself,
Because you aren’t meant to.

Prosaic

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I wanted to write another poem and was hesitating if I should write anything but poetry in my blog ( being a newbie blogger I’m nervous anyway) but I decided that a little insight into my prosaic life does not deserve poetry.

So here I am, a second year undergrad student of English Literature from a city named Kolkata in India, trying out blogging despite being cynical about it. Who even reads these days? I honestly wonder. I used to be such an avid reader (although I gorged on thrillers and not true literary pieces) but now I just can’t seem to concentrate on any book, write-up, and so on-nothing captivates me, and I feel that this happens with all of us now.

Our attention spans are shrinking too fast, we are a generation of bored people. Or is it just me? I love it when someone is often excited about a book, or a TV show or a poem or a song- just about anything at all- because I miss feeling that way. It’s very rarely that I get excited about anything like that- and it is the best feeling ever.

I even dread conversations because I’m always afraid of boring the others. I can’t figure out what to talk about? I have been told to speak more but I keep running round and round in the vicious cycle of-should I call it-shyness? Social anxiety? Whatever it is, it kills all words that dare to come out of my lips. As if, I try to push the words outside of my body but the words come running back inside like scared little children. I know this is stupid, people will not probably hate me if I talk to them, but I get a feeling that I have nothing worthwhile to contribute to any conversation-so why waste words? In the span of a year, thanks to my shyness, I have had a proper conversation with hardly half a dozen people in my university.

There’s another side of the same coin-I get bored by other people easily. It’s a paradoxical feeling- I believe they are cooler, smarter and more eloquent than me, yet I mostly don’t want to listen to them. In the end I end up not talking to anyone at all. I am happy in my own company, but sometimes it does get lonely.

Things are looking up since I am actively making an effort to talk to others. Technically my second year has not yet begun, and I hope that this year is going to bring me a lot more smiles 🙂

I am again afraid of boring you, reader, so I’ll end my piece, but on a less-whiny, happier note. Here’s a picture of a temporary tattoo I drew at a tattoo art competition at uni (the topic was stardust). I stood second (because not many participated XD ) and so it’s a good memory of my first year.

Think of dreams and smile at memes, reader, and we’ll meet again.

Fuck sad poets

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Fuck sad poets, you said,
Their whining asses
Always comparing teardrops to rain,
Forcing similes into clichés.
Fuck their dead old sorrow,
Their hollow-hearted love.
Suck it up, bitch,
Make things work
Don’t get fucked and cry after
Or worse, write sappy poetry
Inviting some more fellow fuckups
To celebrate melancholy
With words and wine.
Fuck sad poets, you said,
The world doesn’t need their gloom.

But darling
Why do I see you
Hiding sheets of paper,
Verses scribbled on them?
She broke your heart, didn’t she?
I can see the forlorn look in your eyes
Typical of the poets you despised.

Poets never created misery, my love,
The world was already full of it.
All they ever wanted
Was to
Set themselves free.

Image source

Winter

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What will you do
When the youth of your body
Leaves,
Like a cruel gorgeous maiden
Who never cared for her lover

What will you do
If your experiences tire you
But never bloom into wisdom;
Your dandelion hair
Shedding
Every time you sigh

What will you do
If nobody cares
As you descend-
Rather, drown
Into your second childhood
Cheating on your diabetes diet
Sucking on mango seeds
Over and over
Like a greedy baby

What will you do
When one sudden morning
You catch your mind running slow,
Buffering every other minute
Yet not slow enough-
You can still observe
The annoyance it causes
To others
Their attention span getting shorter every second

What will you do
To hide your pain
When the shopkeeper screams-
Justifiably, you tell yourself,
It’s another day
Of forgetting the hearing aid

What will you do
When phone calls make you jump
Dreading
Who it is this time
Anxiety chewing aloud on your miserable mind
In the silent funeral

What will you do
When you can’t escape
The necessary noise of daily soaps
Reality TV
And hours of meaningless news
To fill the void
In your days
Evenings
Nights

What will I do
When I wither away in winter
Even though I never knew
How to blossom in spring?

Love/Affair

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Lovers II (1928) by Rene Magritte

I’d like to fall intensely in love.
Fall in so deep
That I hit rock bottom,
Only hoping you’d lift me up.

While pulling me up
You’ll fall in love too
Over my beautiful locks of hair
My tiny waist
My flawless skin
And before you finish lifting me
You’ll fall down yourself.

We’ll fall together
Deeper and deeper
Intensely in love.

One look at your chiselled jaw
Your muscular arms
That cocky smirk
And whoosh
I fall twenty feet deeper.

We’ll fall and fall
Until we can’t see
Our perfections anymore.
We’ll fight and fall out.
Fall out of love
Get out of the pit of intense love
And float apart
In giant bubbles of ego.

But
Neither you nor I possess
Such supermodel-like perfection, do we?

Maybe we aren’t fit for
The age-old tale
Of the dashing damsel and the handsome hero
Who didn’t step past their face values
Always sticking to
Love at first sight.

Maybe we aren’t fit for a love affair.
I am glad
For our greasy faces and gaping smiles.
Maybe we have hope
For love.

Hours

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Sky stretched on the canvas.
So much blue, she is lost.
Specks of happy clouds
Float around like white cotton balls
Just like she used to run around the house
In a pale white frock
On humid summer afternoons.

Afternoons have kept their promise.
They peek in every day
To check up on her
But the girl has all grown up.
Afternoons now
Are dismissed daytimes.
Busy, yet boring;
That time of the day
Everyone wants to get over with.

Evenings arrive with hopes of glamour-
Breezy walks,
Cheery dates.
Playtime for children in the park.
Her playthings are gone, her
Playmates have long forgotten her.

All that is left-
Miles of scrolling the screen
And fear of missing out,
As work piles on.

Sky stretched on the canvas.
So much blue, she is lost.
So much she could’ve been,
So much she never will.
Time to paint it all afresh
With the hues of night instead.
With strokes of black paint
Strikes the midnight hour.

It’s time for dreams.
She can be anything now.

Beauty

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A little girl with stars in her eyes
Believes her balloons will reach the sky,
And carry her wishes to the gods above.
She strains her tiny neck
To look at the vast space
A little worried if her balloons reached safely.
She still has 
Concrete faith in 
Gas balloons
Her eyes still sparkle with innocent joy.

The teenaged boy
Runs with his friends in the neighbourhood
Competing outside the syllabus
Competing for fun
Who can reach home the fastest?
Sweaty arms and sweaty legs,
Glistening,
Eyes too.
His only playtime after hours of coaching classes.

The tired youth in his office outfit 
His head heavy 
With work stress and the bike helmet
Finds a way home
The glaring traffic lights
Cannot shine as bright
As his wide grin, 
His wife embraces him
Home, sweet home.

Two lovers at the park
Reddened cheeks glowing in the shadows
Like bright graffiti in a dark alley,
Emanating energy and warmth.
Pure indulgence in the loveliest of sins,
Even the gorgeous moon is dimmed by their glamour.

Some days
I only see the beauty in this world.
It does not matter if I am a part of it
It does not matter whose beauty is supreme.
All that counts 
Is the brightness and the light.
Silly me,
I don’t want to blink, not even once
Lest it should all go away. 
Beauty, please stay.