To somebody that I used to love

Dear A,
How are you? 
I know you're not doing well,
and neither can I.
You turned twenty two months ago, and it's summer break now—
Youth and time: the perfect combination, right?

But I know you resent your twentieth birthday
with the same seething passion you could never love me with.
I know you resent it because after that day,
you stabbed your soul so hard 
that its shriek shook the heart you'd strung up on a torture rack,
and your soul hasn't sung since;
Not like it used to do,
not like it was supposed to do 
with the vodka-spiked tea of youth running through your veins
I can see it's mute;
your blank slate empty of creation 
littered with your torn-up hair instead.

To tell you the truth, A, 
I've been devoid of creation too.
I can no longer seem to create pretty things
so I've turned into a vulture for them:
I scavenge for beauty now,
Blacking out words in old newspapers
to dig up poetry in that manner you hated
Hunting for bits of paper and shiny little things
to assemble in my scrapbooking journal
in that 'aesthetic instagrammy' manner you so despise
And I find that discarded beauty in my broken house 
so that I'm arms deep in its cracks, 
fingers fumbling for fulfilment
Even so, I am glad;
at least I'm not scavenging for sadness 
like you used to do.

Do you still make your 5s like squiggly S's, A?
Because you rented room 505 for a lifetime
in the hope that someone would read it as SOS,
And your yearning is a poor veil 
for the love you could never afford yourself
so you look for others to spare some for you—
Perhaps that is why you chose to break yourself
so you could kintsugi yourself back in place,
Be better, stronger, more beautiful, more artistic 
but still not something that hunger could be satiated with.

The other day I heard you load the gun of adulthood 
to shoot your dreams in the head
And sharpen your paper knife 
to cut lines in their fat greasy thighs.
I know because I found the bullet holes still sizzling
the bloodless cuts (you could never cut that deep)
still unhealed on the body in your backyard—
Now a body,
because you could only create on the fumes of despair
for so long before the fuel ran out.
Didn't I tell you, A, 
your suffering had no meaning in the first place?

You thought you were a sinkable ship
but it turns out you're doomed to float forever.

Let me help you float undoomed.

Because I may not love you now
but I want to, by god I want to love you.
So let me rip the band-aids off healed wounds
and gently peel the bandages off pits of blood to check on their state
Because I see you, because I am you, because I perch in your stabbed soul
and I may not be the hope Dickinson told of so fondly
but I certainly have feathers, although small,
I do have the spark that could light your way to get that heart off that black rack—
A will-o-the-wisp, if you will—
I'll teach you to arrange the pieces you thought you'd lost along the way
in that scrapbook manner I like,
and it will all make sense.

Youth comes after

"It's the month of poetry
and I have nothing to write about—
Each sunset and leaf
Each tempest and grief
already expounded on—
I'm all out of steam now
Everything I had to say, I said when I was young,"
I say.

And when were you young?

You have been old all your short life, my love,
When before today have you slunk
onto the forbidden fifth floor of that campus building
that no one even knew you could go to,
When else have you so overused
the phrase 'alone, but not lonely'
When else have you walked into love
with yourself, eyes wide open, voluntary,
and felt a quiet kind of thrill,
a cool kind of warmth
on art-and-coffee dates with yourself,
When, before today, has your ink not run out 
but your words have?

When else, sweet child of the rain,
have you yelled your heart into a mic on a stage
in a room full of 'chill' artists— if artists can ever be that—
Been hugged so long and so tight by a complete stranger,
felt like crying twice on the same day in the same place
and not romanticised it in rhythmless verses?
When else have you inhaled the pages of antique books
that you bought by the kilo, 
and been done with it in a couple of lines in a single poem;
When else have your palms run out of room
for fallen blooms?

When else, when before, my darling,
have you cheered at an acapella and a rainbow fashion show
with the person you're still too afraid to call 'best friend'
When else have you sucked at bowling
or fallen on your ass off a tiny skateboard
and felt your hand a jigsaw puzzle piece
as that boy helped you up,
When else has that fun girl from your class
been your partner in tiny crimes
or that chatty big-brother-figure classmate
called you the 'crouching moron hidden badass goth girl'
When else have you indulged in little adolescent pleasures
too unpoetic to write about?

For you, beloved of the winter stars,
time runs backwards.
For these are only the newest-born sprigs of youth
that you might think pruned away too quickly
even before they've had the chance to breathe,
and you will think joy fleeting technicolour
glitching in the old noir television set of life,
But to think joy a firecracker and sorrow a candle
is a bit double-standard, don't you think?

You are yet to pat the puppy's head a bit too forcefully
You are yet to set the milk jugs precariously close to the edge
You are yet to accumulate enough air in your lungs
to blow out that seemingly everlasting candle, I know,
But heart,
I have yet to see another still beating
after so often being beaten within inches of its life,
I have yet to cup a face in my hands
of someone so dimmed yet so alive.

Remember when your sister told you 
she saw the evening in your soul?
You have not yet felt young, oh you, beautiful old,
But what is more youthful than the evening
more brimming with possibility
serene yet buzzing with quiet current-generator hums
colourful yet perfumed with the greyed earth—
Don't you see? 
The dusk is yet to dawn.

I know it is unfair for it to be all rocks
and you barefoot,
For the tunnel so long and you exhausted,
I know you will keep retreating
into the familiar comfort you do not want
yet still, unbeknownst, cling to,
For I am but a corporeal hand for you to hold,
but I promise I will be enough
and will keep holding you even when you do not.

You are artist, my dear, not art,
to be strung up on a wall and admired,
You create 
to destroy some, to birth some, to feel some—
and feeling one does not incapacitate the other
as neither does a moment's absence equal annihilation
of the self, or peace, or joy,
which are just as worthy
as detachment, or chaos, or distress are.

'Happiness' has not stopped 
being a loaded gun of a word.
There exist still, inside you
vampires feeding on your blood
hellhounds baying for more 
servings of lava
Demons, nightmares all
that you have yet to catch in the net woven of language
The same language whose kite strings
have yet to set free seraphims
orchestrating pegasi hungry for flight
and moon gods thundering to be alive.
The ocean of thought never dries up, for you are human
And words can certainly not leave now;
In fact, they are yet to come
for youth comes after,
Unwasted on the young.

5th April/ (4/30)/ Free verse

Special thanks to Starninja‘s comment which I plagiarised inspired some of the lines in this poem.

Prose-tinted Glasses S1, E3

E1- 1984 | E2- The Handmaid’s Tale

Hello and welcome back to the series which is updated once in six months, where I look at the world through the ideas in a popular book that most of us only pretend to have read. And I subject you to the essays I would’ve written had I been an English Literature major. (Not to brag but y’all gave me an A+ the last two times so I guess I could replace ‘subject’ with ‘treat’ *wink*).

Guess which book we’re doing today. It can’t really be called a modern classic, but it’s not Paradise Lost-old either. You’ll be able to guess; I’ll give you two words: psychology and quiet.

If Apollo had a conscience

A saying known about me goes today—
'Apollo loves you? You are screwed to hell'
I could smite all mouths which these words say
I won't, though; for that's the truth, I can tell.

My endless power to heal, what good does it bring?
I fail to save even those whose love I won
Their fates forever sealed with Hades' ring
The sea or the earth seems higher up than the sun.

Though how do I shield from the arrows of erosy?
The boundless beauty of mortal souls attracts
A disease which seems to have no remedy
My heart, it shies, away from loveless contracts.

To the deity of augurs, fate, his own, concealed
But try, I will, to keep all feeling sealed.

30th April/ (15/30) / Shakespearean sonnet

झूठा प्यार

कभी-कभी मेरे दिल में 
एक पुराने गाने की कुछ पंक्तियाँ आती हैं—
'पल भर के लिए कोई हमें प्यार करले,
झूठा ही सही।'
(देखा जाए तो सालों पहले ये गाना 
बता चुका था टिंडर का आना।)
पर कभी-कभी मेरे दिल में 
यह भी ख़याल आता है,
कि क्या यह गायक  
सचमुच चाहेगा झूठ-मूठ का प्रेम?

क्योंकि आख़िर क्या है ये प्रेम?

प्रेम वो जल है 
जो तुम्हारे सूखे गले कि प्यास बुझादे
और भिगोकर पूरे दिन की थकान मिटादे,
प्रेम वो पवन भी है
जो तुम्हारे बदन को छूकर तुम्हारे
गिले-शिकवे अपने साथ बहाकर ले जाए,
प्रेम वो धरती भी है
जिसपर नंगे पाँव चलकर
तुम्हे घर जैसा महसूस होता है,
प्रेम वो आकाश भी है
जिसकी ओर तुम घंटों तक घूरकर
उसकी विशालता में नहा सकते हो,
और प्रेम वो अग्नि भी है
जो तुम्हे जलाये नहीं, बल्कि 
अपनी गर्माहट में तुम्हारे ह्रदय को समेट ले।

जानती हूँ मैं कि 'सच्चा प्यार' कितना घिसा-पिटा लफ़्ज़ है,
जानती हूँ मैं कि ये पाया नहीं, बनाया जाता है,
जानती हूँ मैं कि इसकी पंचतत्वी सुंदरता
तभी मिलती है जब ये दो-तरफ़ा हो—

लेकिन नहीं, किशोर दा, नहीं, 
ये दो-तरफ़ा प्यार अगर झूठा हो
तो इसकी बाढ़ में डूबकर तुम मर जाओगे,
इसके तूफ़ान में लिपटकर खो जाओगे,
ज़िंदा दफ़्न होकर घुट जाओगे,
आस्मां से गिरी बिजली का झटका सह ना पाओगे,
आग कि लपटों में समाकर राख हो जाओगे—

किशोर दा, दो दिन के झूठे इकरार 
की इतनी कामना न करो, तुम्हारी प्रियतमा 
तो भूल जायेगी तुम्हें इन दो दिनों के बाद
पर तुम्हारी यादों में भटकते हुए
रुलाती रहेगी तुम्हें, जलाती रहेगी तुम्हें
तुम्हारे खून के तेल से;
याद दिलाती रहेगी कि तुम्हें प्यार मिला भी
तो भी वो एक नाटक ही था
एक फ़िल्म का गाना ही था।

7th April/ (7/30) / Free verse

I and the Sky

On Friday evening, I took my SOS pill—
you know, the Slave Of Suicide one?
I picked up my planisphere obscured 
my phone's torchlight with a finger,
And instead of looking down from my balcony,
I looked up
looked up at him, Orion, the hunter constellation
My constellation
And held on to his belt.

I held on to his triple-star belt
And consulted my planisphere— I was going to try and find
not myself, but other constellations today
like my life depended on it
(because it did) after much trial-and-error,
I discovered I'd been mirroring him all along.

I'd been looking up at my hunter
the wrong way all these years
His bow is on the opposite end of Betelgeuse, you idiot
and that's why you haven't discovered anything else yet.

People ground themselves at the north star 
while stargazing
But I say the north star is overrated
I won't make a single star my guiding light—
my guide is a man made out of stars. 

And that night, I didn't feel my neck aching
(to be slit) from looking up for too long;
I was a child, my playground the night
sky, I learned the names of stars
and found constellations with my Orion—
Canis major and minor, Gemini, Auriga
(Taurus was concealed by the citylights)
I even created my own constellation,
I nicknamed stars;
I and the Sky
shared a lot of inside jokes that night. 

When I was done frolicking through the sky
and sitting back singing Space Oddity, I saw
that the most serendipitous of stars
had also been the dullest—
Very literally, 
In the darkest of nights,
the faintest of stars were the brightest of lights.

River Song had said in an episode of Doctor Who
that you love the stars,
but you don't expect them to love you back—
But sitting there in that chair I felt
The gusts of life through my hair and I realised,
I realised the stars did love me back.

On this day, when I was choking on my own brain
The day I was relapsing into the empty,
The universe embraced me in its galactic arms
caught me in its welcoming palm
soothed me with a forehead kiss saying, Look,
Look here, take out your forgotten planisphere
and today I'll uncloud your eyes,
so you can see all the patterns in the sequins embroidered
in this upturned black bowl that you've been missing.

And maybe it was just the SOS pill
Or the thrill
of finding paintings in the stars,
but in that moment, I felt them loving me back
filling my hollow body with their supernoval cores,
From a million light-years away, I felt loved.
Maybe it's temporary, or my hyperactive imagination,
but I don't care— I didn't pick up the kitchen's sharpest knife,
I didn't need anyone else that day
For the stars themselves had begged me to stay.

5th April/ (5/30) / Free verse

Beetroot

As cold water runs over my fingers I
look in the mirror and notice the crimson
staining my chapped lower lip
And a dot of it on the teardrop in the centre
of my upper lip it is
nothing but a stain from the shredded
Beetroot I ate with salt and lemon in the morning.

But this beet stain on my lip makes me feel
again, the beat of your heart
with my lips on your soft neck
My mouth feeling (the beat stain) pulse 
(running, running) of your vitality coursing underneath
My fingers
Clutching your shoulders
(running, running) down your bare arms
hot from your rushing blood but cold
to me
from the gibbous-moon gusts of the night.

The beet stain brings your hushed body back
Your hair, flying loose, a thin veil before my eyes
as your hands squeezed mine and your heart beat fast
(the beat stain) lipsticked mouth gaping wide
to let out quick breaths (too much for your nose)
and a moan echoing in finality with pain
as my teeth drowned in your yielding flesh
and my tongue tasted the blood
(running, running) like a river down my throat your heart

pounding out a final grand symphony reverberating
in the flamenco through your arteries, your veins
collapsing like your dilated pupils into kaleidoscopic irises
that were always too reflective
Of the beauty of humanity, your humanity
to ever comprehend my lack of it 
Or (the beat stain) secrets concealed in my canines
Until your heart stopped (running, running)

And the last vestiges of your delicate life
kept you from stumbling over forward
pushed you into my waiting arms
Your fingers still intertwined in mine, though limp
I touched your bluing mouth with my (beat stain) lips
and laid you down in the tall grass near the stream
Gently
My fingers no longer (running, running) down your sculpted body
but only the mud in the bank embracing you 
For evermore. 

4th April/ (4/30) / Free verse

Your basic love poem

Let me guess— you're in love and want to write them something
Something that'll impress them and send their heart fluttering,
Something like Ben's haiku for Beverly from It
Winter fire, January embers, that crazy romance shit;
But you ain't got a clue on how to poem
And you're not shallow enough to commission an Instagram poet
So you're over in your head and haven't got a clue?
Worry not, children, mommy's here to help you.

Let's start, we'll go top to bottom, then back to the top
Let your heart overflow and just write till you drop;
Don't worry, I'm just kidding, there'll be actual advice
That might just get you that dreamy sunrise,
Now open up your brain, listen, oil those gears
And insert your beloved's qualities over here.

For their hair, use some adjectives from that shampoo ad last night
You know it gets all tangled but about its shine you must write,
Now move on to the eyes, drown in their swallowing deep
Just ignore the dark circles they get from too little sleep,
You could throw in a line about the nose— well, not much there
Just insert your beloved's qualities in here.

Now we come to wanting to kiss those soft moist lips
You don't mind they're actually chapped as potato chips,
Tell them how holding their hand makes you feel the warmth of the sun
Yep, that's a good line, make a little note, hon,
Don't mention fireworks— of clichés you must steer clear
And insert your beloved's qualities in here.

Time to move on from the pretty face, warm hugs and embrace
That person inside you want to be with all your days,
Maybe they're smart and sincere, to which you tip your hat
Or they're a total dumbass and you love them for that,
Whatever their personality, just imagine them near
And insert your beloved's qualities over here.

Now romanticise the sound of their voice
When you listen to them talk, everything else becomes white noise,
Oh, it's actually nasal, shrill or guttural? Then focus on the conversation
Or lie and paint them as Morgan Freeman's imitation,
Don't write the sappy 'sweet nothings' you wanna whisper in their ear
But insert your beloved's qualities over here. 

Last, talk about how their presence makes you feel inside
Maybe you feel safe, happy, and bring out your better side,
Or maybe you turn into a clumsy bumbling fool
Or become a pretentious jackass in your attempt to look cool,
Don't be cheesy and say you want February 14 with them each year
Just insert your beloved's qualities in this poem here.

2nd April/ (2/30) / Not really free verse, I think. Rhyme with a refrain?

Silent Night, Holi Night

Holi eve night
I can't see any stars in the black canopy of the sky
But she's there, beautiful, reduced to a centrepiece
For strangers to worship and attach stories to
Who look at her, but don't see— they love themselves
Too much
So they chatter and dance and have fun
Somebody I don't know offers me a sweet
I decline;
My senses are absorbed, 
For even though the sky is dark
She's there, scattering stars of sunset shimmering
Out for the night to inhale.

A girl films her swaying in slow motion to her own rhythm
Oblivious to the loud folk music on the community speakers
I have not brought my camera.
The girl's phone whites out her beauty
Turns her blossoming tongues of magma
Into featureless dazzling white
This is why I did not bring my camera.

But I have brought my heart.

So even though I know that all the metaphors
About her mercurial magnificence
That flood my brain like her anbaric rivulets,
All the poems I could write
That will white out her beauty
Have already been written;
I let my words flow and engulf this page
Like her flames do the wood
I let my words flow because I love the fire.

I love the fire so I come closer,
Even though I can feel her warmth from afar I
Can't help but come closer;
My skin cries tears of sweat
My brain yells at me to step back—
But all I can do is bask in the warmth she radiates
Let my pupils dilate with her heat
And my blood fill with the divinity of Prometheus's stolen treasure.

She is a slice of the Sun on the Earth
And a soothing sliver of the moon
Expectorating fireflies;
All I can do is marvel at her supernova core
All I can do is look, and yet.

I look at her and I want to burn in her,
Dive into her heart and burn
I'll just be another log, some more kindling
That makes her hiss and sizzle and crackle in glee
But I want to feel her sear my bones from within
Like she's seared my heart from without.

Now the stick pyramid falls but she burns on
For she never needed that structure to exist—
She's a force of nature, hair flying wild
And as the wood falls I want to fall too
Fall to my knees in front of her, eyes closed
And evaporate;
Be the Icarus in her tranquil orange lustre
That beautifies the ugliest with her summertime incandescence
And fills this empty pitcher with ichor
That overflows and splashes these pages
With the fiery passion inside. 

1st April/ (1/30) / Free verse

Mahogany-Brown

Mahogany-brown, heaven-sent,

My love

A sublime work of art

Perfect, so perfect.

 

Cloaked in black, like the night

My love, mahogany-brown

Every curve fitting in mine

The piece which completes my puzzle.

 

We don’t need violins and pianos,

My love, mahogany-brown

Symphonies play in our embraces,

And in the brushes of our fingertips.

 

Hollow inside but full, so full,

My love’s mahogany-brown

Richness flows into my soul,

Cathartic, lifting me from the world.

 

And even when my fingers are callused,

My love’s mahogany-brown

Smoothness will never roughen

Because immense purity is untouchable.