Tag: poems

Kitchen

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It was a large house
Airy, marbled, and windowed colourfully,
With gaudy furniture reeking of dowry;
It was a large house
Ornamental, but not beautiful,
Spacious and narrow-minded.

“Here is my living room, Vaani
The curtains are lavender for you
Take care of them, love,
This city is a den of pollution”,
He shakes his head;
“That is our bedroom, and I must say
Your parents bought a nice king-sized,”
And he flashes a slick smile;
“Those two rooms are
For our first and second sons,
They will be fair and beautiful,
Just like you,” he grins,
“You look even more lovely
When you blush”

“Where’s the kitchen?”
“Why the hurry? Here it is
That’s the room you’ll spend your life in
Because, frankly speaking, I can only make tea.”

Forest

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Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Pexels.com
I'm seeping into the soil
My sky is green with the foliage of life
The lack-forest of the city
I have left behind

So I lie on the ground
My eyes closed,
I am looking for the primeval scent
No more the sooty smoke
Of a fast-paced world
I crave the forest so I paint it
Green, dark, and thick with wisdom

My skin settling into the earth
Starts to tingle
The beasts arrive with hungry jaws;
Abiding by the forest's laws
They jump to devour my flesh
My end is dancing before my eyes

In this forest of my making
Perils of civilization
Are nothing but wolves,
Tigers, lions, and the like
I feel better to give in to them
Than to those of my own kind,

And I meet my fate
In the forest in my mind.

Warmth

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Photo by Matheus Bertelli on Pexels.com
I don't need to touch you
To feel your golden glow
I don't need to kiss your lips
To drown in a warm rain
Being with you is all I ask for
When the summer sun hits your face
You battle the oppressive heat
With warmth that is kind
My anger at myself subsides
When I look into your sky wide eyes
I am no longer scathing hot
No longer irate at myself
Hotness burns but you melt me
You soften me into a lover
And I become forever yours
Forever warm
And never sore.

Cogito, ergo sum?

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If it's human to think
Why are we so thoughtless
You and your desk job
Them and their paddy fields
Thoughtless.
Only summers and winters
Mostly summers
Thoughts never brimming up
To concrete acts
And what are acts
If not useless
Just to go back
To another pit
Some wrongs made right
Most rights gone wrong
A fragile balance of
Thoughts negating thoughts

We think therefore we are-
Is quite overrated, as we all have agreed
But it's human to think
Is it human to be?
If we could die everyday with the sunset
Would the cycle be any different
Would the cycle be shorter
But the same?
Small progresses attacked by
Jerks of regression
Perhaps we're doomed to think
And redo our woes
And that's how life goes.

Living

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I'm stretching my smile to cover my face
I'm blinking too, to punctuate your gaze

I'm learning to stay and not say no
Because I've learnt that I can't go

Not when death is alive and cold
Uninvited guest at our doors

I will stay and learn your steps
You will stay and hold my waist

Us against the world, so naive;
We kiss and love and stay alive.

Sunday Afternoon

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Give me a Sunday afternoon
Of noiseless naps and comforting silence.
I'll compare the blue of the walls next door
With the blue of the sky
With the blue of my veins and the blue of my smile.
It will take me a while.
The ceiling fan above my head
May go round and round
But not the hands of the clock.
Please, make the time stop;
I will give you my nightly sighs
I will give you my evening laughs
Give me a Sunday afternoon
And it will, maybe, be enough.

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.

Revaluation

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Photo by Valentin Salja on Unsplash
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.

Doors

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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?
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1
It’s a valley of baby-pink bougainvilleas
We’re little girls spreading our little wings
Running after each other
Colourman O Colourman, which colour do you choose?
I choose you, perhaps I whisper to myself,
I will always choose you.
Our love will blossom as we hold our hands
Ring a ring o’ roses
My rosy cheeks, your dusky grin
Aren’t we the best?
I’ll go after you, run, run
It’s a valley of red roses
I’ve plucked all the thorns,
Love will come to you
Like a soft petal closing your eyelids
Love will come to us
We will be the queens of the world
We need no one
Aren’t we the best?
As the branches grow pink, I blush too
I love you, I love you.
 
2
The earth smells like you
I run my fingers through the leaves of the potted plant
There are no flowers today,
You were running your fingers through the sand
There were no seashells that day
You were smiling as ever,
The sunlight gliding off your skin like oil
I tied my heart to the waves of your hair
The waves made me fall on your shoulder in a giant splash
I didn’t need the sea to fall for you, but I wonder
Who did you fall for?
I called you a mermaid and you braided my hair with flowers
I called you a fairy
Your laughter still ringing in my ears
It has been years.
I found a tiny bud in the plant
A single dewdrop on it
Perhaps that rolled down my cheek.
The earth smells like you today
But I couldn’t be the plant
Rooted in you.
Some dreams, or most, don’t come true.