Tag: art

I swear to God I..

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I wink at my own God
I tell her it’s a secret between us
That no one should know

Wherever I go
I’m a cool atheist, a staunch one
I “agree to disagree”
With silky smiles reflecting politeness
I’m against the riot of religions
And the proofless existence of
Divinity one worships

Wherever I come from
I’m a defiant daughter
Disagreeing with my family
Trying to laugh away my father’s anger
My mother’s sullen look
They think I’m naive now,
One day I’ll understand
One day, I’ll conform

And when I’m home within myself
On a day when I’m battered
By everything that can go wrong
I laugh at my God
Tell her it’s a lie
“Save me but I don’t believe you exist”

What is God, except
The last trick up my sleeve?
How do I furtively rely
On something I don’t believe?

Reclaim

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When I turn my words into theirs
You’ll see that I’ve been heard
My fingers tracing the skeletons of books
Sunsets resting on my earlobes
Water streaming down my sloppy hair
It will all come back
When I’ll play around in their tongues

For you see, I will make myself a book
For everyone to read
You cannot escape me then
Can you shut your eyes and say
You’ve never heard of that story?

I will dance with your thoughts
Shedding skin in their tracks
A miniature version of torture
That you’re inflicting on me now

I’ll be out of print someday
And you’ll be the one
Madly looking for my manuscript
To finally collect my soul

You’ll make my words your own
You will come home.

Pausing to reflect

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Paint a pair of eyes on me
So I can look at the world and not fall apart
Dilute the blood of a rose
Sprinkle it on the glasses I wear
Make some goals for me
Add a spoonful of meaning

Yes, I’m asking a lot

But I want to be hopeful even when I’m not.
What makes me happy
Is what makes me sad
But what I regret are the feelings I never had

Am I just following my peers?
But I am still here
The road is too long and everyone’s ahead
Who will I be when I am but blank
Eyes emptied into screens
Memories of sand

I am not even
A palimpsest.
A charcoaled page,

Gone to waste?

Present

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I exist for the moment
But my back aches with history
They have twisted my tongue into a rope
I’m choking on their words
I’ve coloured myself fully red in their lashing
But they’ve set me free

Oh it’s another postcolonial vomit
Each word I speak
Is a slap of my own doing
I am dragging myself
To reach the primeval forests
Through the mud of patriarchal torture

I take every line of art
To operation theatres
And I dissect it
Until I shred myself to pieces

How do I escape the injustices
Forgive the centuries of their bloody horrors
My back aches with history
I am black and blue
And red
I am spent

Trying to live
A clean Present.

Residue

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The streets are empty and the sunny bricks of red call me home
I find myself in a saree
Rabindrasangeet playing on a loudspeaker
Bhalobeshe shokhi nibhrito jotone
Amar naam ti likho
Tomar monero mondire.

“Write my name with tender love
In the secret chambers
Of your heart, my friend.”
But the city is empty
Who do I call my own?
I rummage through the sheaves of paper in my hand
There are so many letters
No one to give them to.

I scatter them as I go
And I write a poem on the envelopes
Each telling them I’m sorry
I could not exist in my role.

The singing voice stops
The street is empty of sound too
The letters are but scraps of paper
Words melted into dust.

I empty myself in the deserted street
The standstill hour of the sunny day
Reduced to one long moment
I cry without tears.

The city is still picture perfect
Beautiful in its sepia ruins
I close my eyes for a moment
Rest at somebody’s doorstep.

After a long moment again
I open the envelop of skin
Renewing my vision
The night has creeped in
And it’s still a deserted city

I see shadows in each corner
Nostalgia of the souls who left
I try to communicate but they are gone.
I vaguely remember for a moment that
I’ll come back again here tomorrow;
Before I can be certain,
The sun rises

I return with a stack of letters
A ear for music
A soul of yearning
And I come home.

A song for everyday

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I

I’m digging my nails deep into my flesh
For a treasure that was never buried
Neither a time capsule for lost memories
(Memories, which reappear as shadows every morning
Like a cobweb over my eyes, gone in the next blink
As I look up at the sun to confirm it’s a new day after all)

I keep moulding my form
Sandpapering furiously the veneer of my vessel
A glossed up eggshell a second away from breaking apart
And I keep hitting the soil of my skin
For the fresh splash
From my fountain of worth

All the roots I had planted in me
Are loosening into veins
They’re dropping out in the strands of hair I shed
I am rethinking all the words I have said
Or forgot to say
Scavenging for imprints inside my heart before it turns black
Tomorrow when I look up at the sun
All of this will be gone
Perhaps.

II

The sun shines down through the skin of air
I’m not the same vessel of thoughts
The senses in me are swirling up
I’ve learnt to feel,
An acquired taste it is;
I am so happily full of myself
That you, a cynic,
You, my past or my future,
Cannot touch my hair
I am here, I’m here, see!
My heart is softly beating and my eyes are bright
Today I am feathery brightness and glow
Today I’m here
And tomorrow I will be too.

Life between the lines

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I like looking at my half-lit face
A vapid reflection on the bookshelf glass
I see the knowledge gained
So that some knowledge is lost
Outside my window I can reach out
I’ll almost touch the blank wall
But it doesn’t reflect me
Not even a half-frown or a straight smile.

To the poets who can sing of stories
In the breath of history
I am all ears in appreciation
But where am I in the conquered wombs
And the raging warriors
Where am I in the forests of civilisation
How did I swim in the stories
And emerge with a parched skin?

I am closing my soul to every word
Hosting parties for them as guests
I am not the modern living
Nor the past undead.

I hate that I love myself

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I hate that I love myself
Even when I can’t.
At me the looking glass gapes
With a shadow as lifeless
As the idol’s eyes in the temple
Looking straight beyond me
When I once used to pray

I hate that I look at the glass
Harder and harder
Trying to imagine myself into
An aesthetic self
A wise woman
A smiling soul
Bubbling with joy
With a contagious smile

I hate that I make myself believe
I need not be anyone else
My reflection is flawed but never me
Only the glass could be purer
Oh I couldn’t be surer

But I hate that I don’t love myself
As soon as my coerced conception
Breaks into pieces
The illusion shattering into shards of glass
Piercing me everywhere
And I’m back again

Stranded in the dark alley
Sitting with my knees bent
Drenching in the never ending rain.

My Sadness Is Up For Sale

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Photo by Engin Akyurt on Pexels.com
My sadness is up for sale
Packaged in a skin of rage
Buy it for your lover, Ma’am.
Buy it for your children, Sir!
My sadness is a ghoul you’ll get
It’ll stick to the soft terrains
Of all the lovesick souls that you’ve met
They will all forever be chained
Forever and ever, to you.
Black hearts work better than black magic
I’m selling you my best ever trick
It’s an offer that you all must use
It’s my offer that you can’t refuse
I have let my sadness loose.

Of cigarettes and ends

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When the blue sky drips down
And darkens into my hair
When my skin is sketched with human dust
I lie down on seas of grass.

Pearls flow out of my half-closed eyes
A gathering grows around me
Spectres and smoke-heavy souls
Touch my arm in a grey breeze

My demure lips part in peace
Closer to freedom than bliss.

Each time my mother lacked care
My father, love
Myself, hope
I sighed.
I blew out lukewarm images
Of the Ones Who Should Have Been.

They have come to visit me, finally,
A swarm of smoke enters my soul
Each whiff a companion
My heart is full.