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Alicia Prakash Jun 2020
Blood for ink
As I seal your fate
A deadly pandemic
Will lead you astray
Bullets and politics
Won’t prevail
The strongest survive
While the weaklings fade.

Slowly but surely
I’ll take back what’s mine
Two thousand years
And a thousand designs
For vengeance, for justice,
Cold and cruel
A mother’s justice
Tough love- fuelled.

Warnings were spurned
Not once or twice
Greed and Envy
Took root in a trice
Beware, beware,
I surmise
That our cries and sighs
Will be our final goodbyes.
Alicia Prakash May 2020
I once asked my mother, “Why are there tears in your eyes?”
She told me that she’d lost a good soul tonight.
I asked her, “Where do lost souls go?”
She replied with a weak smile, “To a land far beyond our own.”

Ten years hence, I knelt by a grave
Clothed in misery and wrapped in pain.
My sister, a girl of five, asked me why I’d cried
I told her, I was just too scared to be left behind.

Days were all grey, filled with a deafening silence,
Nights were the onslaught of the mind’s tyrants.
Weeks became months, months turned into a year,
Yet all the time in the world couldn’t heal the wounds in here.

I tried and tried, but I kept falling and failing
To discern the intensity of this morbid self-loathing
I feared that I’d forget, and I feared that I’d never forgive
And I feared that, with time, I’d rot until I was nothing.

And nothing I was, for a while. No joy, no face, no name, no grace.
My tears weren’t enough to warm his cold grave.
But with dusk, came dawn. A sliver of light, a ring of laughter.
I learnt to breathe easier, stand taller, be happier.

Like a child without her mother
Forced to fend for herself and no other.
I rose from the ashes of the one I’d lost.
A phoenix in every sense, a life brought back from the fatal frost.

To my dear uncle, whom I’d lost.
A good soul, a good friend, a piece of my heart.
I bid you a final adieu, for there is only now
And now is what I choose it to be.

I choose to let you go,
And to set myself free.
And thus the world moves on and time passes by
Your ashes amidst the trees you grew by and by.


I will sing your lullabies to the little one today,
And hope she turns out like you some day.

To my friends, who’ve lost someone close to their hearts,
Remember, their story has ended, but yours has yet to start.

So weave your words, tell your tales, and choose the life you want.
There might not be a happy ending for you, for death doth take us all.

Just listen to your heart and maybe you might stand a chance.
To find your beat, chain to the rhythm and maybe even sing along.
Alicia Prakash Jun 2020
A symphony for Baghdad:
Words in crimson
On flimsy placards
Held high with anger
Frustration writ
On their ragged features.
The law is hard but it is the law
Says the hypocritical politician
Who bends them all
“Enough is enough”, the people said
Teargas and bullets will not make us sway
Release your bombs and fire your bullets,
Let our blood water this holy ground
Our motherland
But we will not let you stay.
Centuries have passed
Since Sheherezade told her tale
Years have passed since Aladdin’s magic lamp
First touched the minds of the young ones.
Is it a surprise that the young are dead?
Baghdad has fallen
Prey to the hands of those
Who support murdering their brethren and children.
The sun rose and set
The numbers went from thirty to three hundred
And no one cared.
Winners in Baghdad these days are those
Who returns home from the protests
Wearing a necklace of half a metal heart for a pendant
Knowing the other half was lost to the bullets.
They share stories of passion and fury
To hide the void within
Their hope, their faith, lost.
Their sacrifices in vain.
The protests grow old
With news, numbers and names of the players
Of this sick, faux patriotic game.

Lebanon:
The Chaos has affected them far too long
They now out there looking for peace and hope to now spread out more
Havoc almost birthed, they circle and stop the creation
Letting the higher-ups know
Who brings the forth the negatives and hurt
Food and shelter provided
Streets cleaned and maintained for use by all
Wish the world could learn how to function together like this
Imagine a world where
Little children are smiling, greeting other children from different countries and cultures
Living and playing together without a worry in the world
Men and women living in harmony and happiness
Peace an actuality in the world
But that’s only in your head
In reality
Little children are bombed and interrupted by death
Men rather **** the women and **** or shoot down the men that don’t agree with or are against them
Peace is being held on a leash by Chaos
That’s happening in front of your eyes
And right now, you’re probably just gonna read it, like it and move on, but nope.
I see people sharing
More is needed to be done
As I said, I and my friends are bringing the tools
All you have to do is use them properly
If you really want to see peace, you’ll know what to do
I know what I’m doing
Perspective I gained
And now I’m making sure it happens.
Alicia Prakash May 2020
Gone are the days
When laughter was a constant
Gone are the days
When photographs weren’t yellow
Gone are the days
When it was easy to love
Gone are the days
Of promiscuity and senseless passion.

Every moment held with bated breath
Every sunrise led to your morning texts
Every memory I hold of you
A whisper of my love for you
Every minute, every second
Every inch of my sinew and skeleton
Sing songs of love and longing
When I'm not with you.

Your faith unrelenting
Your love uncompromising
Every silence, every kiss
Like a solemn, sweet promise

My love for you tears me and wears me
And makes me anew
It makes me and breaks me
And changes me for you
For the better or for the worse
I will always be true to you
Beyond the end of days.
Always.
Alicia Prakash May 2020
I think of thoughts
That take me places
Find new friends
Meet old faces

I think of stories
That make me forget
The hurt and pain
But mostly regrets.

I think of times
When life was smooth sailing
Always a light ahead
Not tunnels darkening

This wanderlust
This need for a change
These old town people
Will always stay the same.

All these thoughts of mine
Are fleeting flights of fantasy
Where I’m not saying goodbyes
Just making new memories.
Alicia Prakash May 2020
I looked down as I flew
Across the midnight sky
My winged being, a silhouette
As I longingly cast my gaze
To heavenly paradise.

I looked down as I flew
Looked into the waters of the styx
The face that stared back at me
Was one I did not reminisce.

I was once God’s favourite
With wisdom far greater than the depths of the oceans
A prince of beauty among the angels
A harbinger to the end of evil.

Alas! Ambition struck my untainted heart
Greed overtook my common sense
I wanted to play God
But Brother Michael’s sword had its revenge.

He cast me out of my own home
Which was more
Than I could withstand.
Now charged with
Collecting the souls of the ******
With a whip in hand
I was left me to lick my wounds in hell
Surrounded by rotten minds
And rotten hearts.
Alicia Prakash Jun 2020
I looked down as I flew
Across the midnight sky
My winged being, a silhouette
As I longingly cast my gaze
To heavenly paradise.

I looked down as I flew
Looked into the waters of the Styx
The face that stared back at me
Was one I did not reminisce.

I was once God’s favourite
With wisdom far greater than the depths of the oceans
A prince of beauty among the angels
A harbinger to the end of evil.

Alas! Ambition struck my untainted heart
Greed overtook my common sense
I wanted to play God
But Brother Michael’s sword had its revenge.

He cast me out of my own home
Which was more
Than I could withstand.
Now charged with
Collecting the souls of the ******
With a whip in hand
I was left me to lick my wounds in hell
Surrounded by rotten minds
And rotten hearts on the death knell
Alicia Prakash May 2020
You didn’t know me,
You didn’t know the scars buried under my skin,
You didn’t know the darkness trapped within.
You didn’t know the pain I hid all too well.
You didn’t know me.

And knowing that you didn’t know,
You still plunged deep into my soul,
Searching for a light I’d lost
/On the way to my own sweet hellhole.  

And slowly
Painfully slow,
You led me out of this cage
Helped me fight my demons,
Never letting go.

I love it when you smile and your lips tremble.
I love it when you fumble when you’re nervous.
I love it when you play with my hair.
I love it when you say my name like a prayer.

We’re gonna write our story
A tale as old as time
We’re gonna make new memories
One line at a time
And when we grow old and weary
We’ll look into each other’s eyes
As we watch our legacy
Pass on with a smile.

I love how my head fits perfectly on your chest.
I love how you kiss my forehead.
I love how your heart beats as fast as mine.
I love how you whisper in my ear, “you’re mine”.
Alicia Prakash May 2020
Broken mirrors
Broken hearts
Broken minds
Like shards of glass
The patterns forming a work of art
Shrouded by demons of the past

The black cat saunters over
Tipping salt as he alludes
To the bad luck I can’t dispose of
Rubbing salt into my wounds.

I see an Orthodox priest
A ***** blonde with blue eyes
The people murmur as he passes by
Garlic, they cry,
To fight the psychotic presence
In order to eliminate
This demonic essence.

He blessed an expectant mother
In flat #43
He doesn’t recognise her folly
And leaves her in glee.

A young soldier
One among 3
Died after his cigarette was lit
From the same matchstick
As the clock struck 4
A constant reminder
Of its incessant tick-tock
In spite of the woe

The woman- pregnant no more
Comes to the cemetery threshold
Wishing her late husband
And stillborn boy cheerio.

I look at the sky
There they glide, the harbingers of evil
Thick billed ravens and crows
A symbol of one’s sorrows
Flying over the dead
In search of a feast of despair.

Leaving my new shoes on the table
I kiss my love’s forehead
And point at the rainbow outside
While thinking I’m the luckiest woman alive.
Alicia Prakash Jun 2020
Part I

Mirror, mirror, on the wall
Will I live life and love,
Or will I fall
To fits of rage and terror
Kindness- a foreign quality
A sweet poison slowly blurring
The edges of my soul and sanity
Leaving a hole where
There once was light and laughter.
And void of painful questions
Without answers.

Part II
Mirror, mirror, oh my love
I’ve never seen anything more beautiful before
Those erudite eyes, that sweet smile, those lovely curves
Too bad, they can’t seem to calm my nerves
For it doesn’t matter when my skin is dusky
And that is a crime in the eyes of the ivory
Skinned officers who pledge their allegiance
To the rich and the fair
And not their country’s citizens.

Part III
Mirror, mirror oh so fake
Why do you distress me this way?
I hate what I see
But all I see is me
Show me my dreams
And not cold reality
For my actuality is bleak
Or so it feels
In my skinny fit jeans
For 13-year-olds
And not seventeen.
Alicia Prakash May 2020
Pinks and golds,
blues and purples,
So many colours
Of the sky I hadn’t noticed.

Clarity in chaos
Cold sunlight
Thundering silence
Absence of life

The endless days
The boring nights
Filled with meaningless chatter
And petty fights

Nothing matters
Not anymore
It’s just a matter of time
Until we’re all gone.

So take a deep breath
Sing another psalm
Who knows
It could be your swan song.

Or so the fortune tellers
And seers of the world
Would have us believe
When despair takes its toll
And gnaws at our grief.

Faith keeps us moving.
Faith brings us together.
Faith is enough for me to love.
It is enough for me to LIVE.

— The End —