The broken hymns of our promises Are crunching under our dead weights The air we inhale is always so stale The pit of chaos so insatiate Hold my arm, my sisters, please My rainbow hair is bleached and brittle Wrap your kindness around my skin Let your strength help prove my mettle Our eyes unfocused onto a blank wall Soft breaths heaving, we’ll lay still Tomorrow’s so big, we’re so small Won’t we stand? I hope we will. Our strengths hardened by softness A different resilience.
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 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.
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.
The sand bag of my body
Leaks through tears on the sides
When I cry at night
Stone chips rest on my chest
They collect one by one
Clink, clink, clink
Seconds tick inside aloud
My sack is a shroud
That I sewed for myself
Threads made out of
Agonising hate
I’m cemented to the floor,
I need some help
I want to get back up.
Should I wait for the bulldozer to arrive
On some time even gloomier than this?
I’m perhaps already laughing at myself
On the other side of the pain
In moments of bliss and disbelief.
I don’t need help, please.
Monsoon breeds rainy eves
Outside I hear, raindrops scream
Like lovers with fiery passion
With almost a violent motion
They rush to kiss the earth.
Their watery bodies
Shaped like exclamation marks
Strike the ground.
There’s no other sound
I’d rather listen to.
Oh how I enjoy
To drown my thoughts
More often than not
With steady noise.
Hit me with the rain
Do away with words
I’m so tired of your questions
Knocking on my door
Over and over again
Drench me in rain!
My murky mind is paused
Oh, I am so lost.
Trailing down my arms Your breath takes a walk. City noises swell slowly outside us To welcome the day that’s just begun. I look at you and my eyes announce I am running away from you my love I’ll never call you my jaan, my life, You’ll never know why, Perhaps neither do I. I bask in your devilish smile For one last time One last touch Before we die to each other Your lean arms wrapped around me I untie them I free you. I still see her in my dreams, honey. I never tell you How she smiles in them How I forget all about how I hate her Her eyes as big as a still lake I wake up drowning in joy; You embalm my lips in grinning kisses- I cannot mouth the words It's not you. I never see you in my dreams But I love you But you love me I hear you whispering my name Your lips quivering in soft sleep But I’m not coming back. Don’t you worry, love, Someone will fill the gap.
My heart is sinking faster than my breath Red hot metal scraps tinkling like rain Voices loom outside the tunnel I've been inside so long, Do I want to go out? I could ask for help and shout But my voice chokes with rage I want a carnage Every part of myself torn apart Sticking to the walls like abstract art In a room without a door. Explosions inside my core Fashion themselves into frail groans Dissipating into sullen silences Too misty to grasp too well Once they leak outside Into the circle of light. There's no fight left in me I become the tunnel I am my shell Scrape my remains Into a putrid bowl of poetry. You'll finally find me.
If my memory was mapped with Blood clots and muted screams Would I be a patient, or a soldier? If I were too tired To believe in dreams of victory Should I march any further? Angry tears facing the wall I fall, I fall, I fall Thudding my way down every night; Rock bottoms and nondescript floors Are so dangerously alike. A part of me sings upbeat karaoke Pauses for breath and asks me if I'm okay (Forgive me the pun) And I sing along, it's great What's the use of wallowing in sadness? If keeping away sorrow was enough I'd still have a chance. But you can't just dance the way All your life. Aim! Aim! Be on top of your game! (I could rhyme this line with 'shame' If I had it in me. Sorry.) I am sorry, but perhaps I'm not. The guilt for the absence of guilt I've got Eats me inside when I imagine my life- A cumbersome, crooked centipede of Time Always ending up smashed into a fleshy patch A huge footstep crashing down, down, down. Or maybe I'll just be around For pleasant winters and sultry summers Gliding with peppy music Perhaps I won't be sick. I think I'll fight it.
I may say that I know you. But how could I? When you have woven not walls I might climb But long labyrinths coiled Around yourself There are a thousand and fifty one ways But none of them reach your heart Fresh fortresses at the end of every path I seek The heaviness of the doors makes my heart sink. When we speak not of the dreamy sunsets But of the beauty of our shadows Elongating in tune with the length of our conversations On the steps of the river bank, You smile with your endless eyes I feel, a door has opened. Yet the moment next, The door disappears, leaving its shadow behind I keep running after shadows. I hold your hand sometimes Will you ever squeeze it back? You smile at me, And I cannot think of anything else For hours on end. When I'm alone at nightfall I replay your smile in my head Clutching at a fleeting image Lest it should turn to smoke. Perhaps it's useless to hope. I labelled the unnamed longing in my heart The Gross Over-expectations of Romance. (Alternately, The Downside of Being A Clichéd Hopeless Romantic?) When I stopped mid-sentence Telling you about my Better-than-the-average day, You brought your empty eyes back to life. Maybe you try too hard to mask them For my sake, as a friend. The myriad ways I try to reach you Are always destined only to my broken heart. I may say that I know you But how could I When you haven't truly Given me the right?
