I have given up every single noon
In the past few months,
And have gone to bed tired,
Wondering if I ever should feel,
What is the meaning as I start to weep?
Tears stain my cheeks,
The corner of my eyes red,
Swollen like petals folded out,
I stared out into the dark
And I saw darkness staring at me.
I asked my friend yesterday
What was the meaning of my life?
She never answered.

I saw adults fight,
I saw one scream,
And the other one kept on hitting.
I saw a blood pumped boy
Pull out an accessory sword
And wield it to ****.
I saw a young girl
Kneeling to God
And I saw her sister follow
But she gave up soon,
When she was touched by a man
She never even knew.

I saw hope burn up into flames
And I saw a veteran die blind in bed
All alone.
I saw the poor man dying in an empty stomach
Without his wife on his bedside
Who went out feeding strangers.
And I saw the rich rob people
Of their dignity.
I saw a father slapping his sick child
Because the medicines hadn't kicked in.
I saw a mother corrupted by cancer
As she prayed to heal others.
I saw a son grow to hate his father
And yet needing him.
I saw a daughter being failed
Even though she was the only one trying.
I saw a grown girl cover her eyes
To hide from her father.
I saw chairs flung onto the floor,
I saw glass smashed by bare hands,
I saw utensils fall into each other
And I saw quiet men enraged.
And I don't think
I ever once saw Him.

Yet I woke up this very morning
And for a few seconds
I couldn't make out my room,
And in that oblivion I realized
Hope wasn't in the good,
The happy moments
It was in the denial, the ignorance,
It was in the wait to die
And yet living.

Sometimes I look at the old photographs
Pressed between worn out pages
Of times I do not remember,
For the times I keep guarded
I keep no mark of.
So I stare at that little girl
Whose eyes are same as mine
And has seen the same wars as I,
Because the damage was done
When I was a kid.
From then to now
The wars have ceased,
That little girl has seen too much for her age
Than now I ever will.
I wonder when I look at her face,
I fail to connect
That's how I stay away from people.
I wonder if she thought of the future ahead
How her strength then would let her live?
If she knew why she continued to fight ,
If she ever had any hope at all,
Or she thought she couldn't simply die?
Because all I can think now
Is ending it here.
I have hope, I really do
But I look at her decades back
And I don't see the point.
She was so scared, all the time
She had her walls so high
She, the moment she understood
Spent her time wishing to save others.
Her life contained days
That belonged to everyone around,
Her fight thereupon easier.
I guess the problem ensued
When she started to have her own.
I look at her, I look at her
She doesn't look anything like me,
I don't feel anything at all
But pain.
I want to tell her
That is all she will ever feel,
That pain she thought would go away
Would bury itself in her soul
And she will never feel alive again.
I never really recognize her by her looks
It's always how she makes me feel,
I stare at her
And the sadness has remained,
The fear still lines up
And happiness for some people
Is a momentary event
That simply intensifies the pain.

She could see her arm through the sleeves of her dress
They rested so far from one of the sides
And yet the mirror said she needed to be more light.
Most of the days
She was afraid she would be too much
For a guy to own
Her heart had long been strangled
By her load
And so she no longer ate.
But, here she was months later
Owning half of what she had
And yet carrying too much ,
Her heart was a bit afloat
But still dragged was her soul
For the mirror said
She needed to be more hollow.

Her ribs poked her chest,
She felt them with her fingers
When she was in her room alone,
No one could see them,
She wouldn't let anyone so close
But she wondered if they could feel those bones
Maybe they would have considered her light.
Undressed after a bath
She would turn around at the mirror
Gazing at her backbone- gazing back .
It was all so clear now
You could almost count the bones
Yet the mirror said she must be a bit more hollow.
Her hands were now so much more thin
You could hold them in the stretch of your thumb
And maybe your little finger
And even though you would laugh at her length
She would be scared by your touch
So that you do not know.

Of all the things she lost,
Her sullen cheeks to her coat,
Her smile was the thing she misses most.
Now her smile was too empty,
Previously it was fastened to her face
Now the hollow mouth almost appears
As if her smile would just fall of,
She is now shy to smile
She often wonders back to the day
When that guy had said
She had a beautiful smile.
But you wouldn't know
Photographs never really captured her
Now not anymore.

She often stumbles now,
Lighter to her feet
She does get up herself,
But she wonders now and then
If it had been because most of her
Was now gone.
So vacantly, emptily she walks
A few watch her go,
The world is the mirror
With no memory of the past,
It still calls her heavy
With no appreciation of what she has become.
She has lost herself
And the world needs her
To lose herself more.
She wonders if it's time
To have their demands finally denied.
How much more could she afford to lose ?
How long until she dies?

The last three days were hammer on a nail,
A nail that doubt planted.
You went thud thud thud
And the nail burnt a hole in my heart.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
I moved not an inch,
I gloried at the sight of blood
That sipped to validate my fear.
Thud thud thud.

I was clamped up in terror and pain
For months past now,
Words I counted before sending them on.
You scoffed at them
And wielded the first thud
You screamed at me
Two nights back.
I smiled and fainted to a sleep
That lasted until you dragged the hammer
With a screech,
The nail rusted a bit with my blood
But it stayed.
Thud.

I grasped my words tight to my throat
Only muttering a handful of them now,
You played with your other tools
And I happened to see a weapon in them all.
A sharp edged knife,
A gun with bullets,
A cannon from a war,
I was crouched in a ball
Still looking at you.
Thud. Thud. Came the second blow
You whistled at a bird across.
The nail bent a little to the right
And made it far beneath my skin.
The blood now formed a wall,
Like concrete and bricks
Blood and rust.
Thud thud.

I shivered between sleep and wake,
Flinching as you dragged your hammer,
A bolder screech across the wall,
Like your voice before you speak.
And then as if a habit
You raised your arm
And dropped was the hammer
On the nail,
Thud thud thud, the last blow you made.
You said how I was made to mend,
By a hammer in your hand.
The nail tore to my bones
And lodged itself as a note.
The hammer ringed in my head,
Blood didn't flow like sleep out of my bed.
I cried in silence
And was gone unlike before.
You dragged your hammer still,
I know.
Thud thud thud.
It rings,
You were hammering my memories.
Thud thud thud.
I was gone now.
Thud thud thud. Stop.

There is a nail lodged in me
But that will be all,
Thud thud thud
I walk on.
Stop.

We were there
Somehow exposed,
So I broke my back to hide
Behind a girl I must now call my friend
Due to the norms.
After words over words
That made no sense to me,
(Most of the days it no longer does)
We sat there pondering,
How each of us ended up there,
Most of us looking for our place.
I wondered how it felt
Like I owned that seat,
But I never do belong.
So she drew a sketch from her memory,
It was her home,
Yet it appeared , I don’t know how
But as simple as a doll house,
How fickle are our lines drawn
They can never justify our memories!
We laughed at her richness,
So she started drawing what we called minimal.
There was a pointed roof
So far beneath the sky,
One bent door
And a tiny little window with no glass,
Maybe we all do wish a world
With no bounds,
But look at us
Chaining ourselves,
Caged in a concrete home.
Over the house she drew these tiny hills,
The sky yet to fill in,
And then the sun,
(I decided it was the time of sunrise),
And across that eye with long eyelashes,
Like the ones they all talk of,
She drew this crooked but fast little black likes,
Curved with a dash beneath,
Three in number
And staring at that I realized
I have never been this dead before.

I had too many things in boxes
Shut for too long.
I had the doubts hidden in the memories
And the faces I tried to recall.
I let them all sit in darkness
As they pounded my mind
Slowly I let go of it
And I preferred driven mad inside.
My heart was all I listened to,
I must have forgotten
How the beats were mine
and mine replied.
All the questions I repeated
But never asked you once,
Two possibilities I believe -
I thought I knew them all
Or that I was scared of what I didn't .
Now you have left my heart all empty
Too empty and I'm unable to have it shut.
The boxes have spilled over
And I stare at them
Strewn across my feet.
They are brown and bland and boring
As I used to be,
Insides are the truths
I denied my heart to see.
They lie so lifeless and dark
I am scared of its sight,
You have left me where I once had lived
But now I am scared of the things I see.
They are the remains of my heart
All broken and hidden for so long,
But they are the only truths of me
And I hid them from you, all.
My heart was a fool
Always have been,
It tried to win you over
But my mind was what stood of the truth.
Now you are gone
And the boxes have all fallen
Off the shelf and off the rack,
My mind is now all empty
And I can fill it with the world.
I should have shown you those
Maybe you would have been gone long ago
Now my heart is all vacant
It gave away echoes of your words.

I sit here now staring
Upon memories and memories
They resemble so much of the lies I know
I am almost afraid
Of the truth taking over.
I learnt my lesson
I learnt the truth ,
My mind has spilled over
And stained all that I knew.
I stuff my heart with boxes
Boxes I will never use,
They have your words and your promises
That you have kept
And my mind is now open
And harbors the truths I knew
-you would leave,
You would forget,
We will live as if we never met.

There is one box though
I don’t know what to do with
Whether to give you
Or have it hid,
It says the thing I never said ,
The one truth that overlaps doubts
And each and each possibility we would regret.

You see the man first
Your head above your plate,
The fork and the spoon
In your hands.
You skipped the prayer of thanks,
Or to even pause a second
To see what you had been served,
Even before the server could leave
You had your first bite through
And you could not tell how it tastes.
"You were to escape"
You used to say,
"Escape what" now you question.
Silence flows through you like blood
Must have on that man's face,
If you were courageous enough
You could have counted the slaps
That man had placed.
Instead you paused and stared
Too many answers in you mind
On how there were no words
But you skipped the right question.
You heard the fire,
You heard the structure falling
And you saw the crowd gathering.
There was so much you should do
So little you could
But you skipped your rule
And sat there the way through.
Years of rebellion
And years of righteousness
Washed in that moment of cowardice.
You sat there all
Just staring and answering
The questions you couldn't ask.

Do you remember what you suggested?
You suggested to walk away
To make the man realize his wrong ways
But silly you,
Why are you so much of a coward ,
I doubt
It was simply you running away.
For the thought you skipped to act
Was walking to the man
And holding back his fist
But you so had it all skipped.
You sat there,
A silent prayer running through your mind
Couldn't you tell,
You are no help to the world,
What were you doing there?

And so here you are
The sad, pitiful part
You worried about not having answers,
Silly you,
Now you pace
With answers alone
You decided to skip the questions.

Answer-
You can either comment on the fire
Or ignore the smoke all together
But you do nothing
To douse the flames
You skipped the

They had the wall finished now
And added a few colored yarn in the front,
And they appear so out of place
With those grey bricks behind
And yet so beautiful
When I noticed them after
Almost missing out the hills this time.
There seems to be a new star added on to the sky
Which I couldn't count back in the city
I now survive.
And the moon is appearing so yellow tonight
As if to mock me
That in my absence
Nothing has remained the same,
And I plan to come back,
But come back to what?
And only the nights are used
To occupy your room,
The rest of the day,
You are learning the changes,
The added vase here,
The broken sink there,
The table that was brought just before you left,
And you wonder why in your memories
It still hasn't taken its place.
Downstairs, next to your door,
The two rooms now broken and open
That earlier housed a kid
Who moved and is now too grown for you to talk to,
You were never good with adults,
Kids, well kids could be smiled to,
Eyes widened, and mouth hung in an O
And you were good to go.
But now they demand words
And you would rather speak silences
As you recall the times you were not this old,
And you plan to come back,
But come back to what?
The water now here tastes funny
And you are almost shocked
At the face you end up making,
And I hate myself a little
With every gulp I end up taking.
So you wonder if
The whole city's water has changed,
And the sun, is the sun now fiercer?
So you go out
And stand in the sun,
To somehow burn the feelings back
And then you see
An old lady staring at you,
She is new here,
Wondering what you might be like
The way you would have wondered
If you were here when she moved,
Does she like you,
Plan to come back,
But come back to what?
So I ignore my friends,
Ignore the routes I frequented.
And if I happen to pass my high school,
I now look away,
Its funny when I realize,
When I can't even remember the houses
Next to my middle school, o' yes
Everything has changed,
The people in the houses too.
And I plan to come back,
But come back to what?
So I guess, once you leave home
There is not much to look back to,
Nowhere to permanently belong to,
You simply move from city to city
In a hope to feel at home,
But all you get is a longing,
A memory to compare to
With all that you are missing,
That you once had,
And every little discomfort mocks you
There is nothing to go back to,
Not even your home.

Don't come back...

People have butterflies  
In their stomach they say, 
When something tickles their heart away. 
They say something dances in there, 
That something gets them all red . 
That is how they know  
When something is good for their heart, 
The butterflies, I suppose is a sign of love 
-captured in their heart, 
Making their way around, 
The butterflies dances to someone else's songs 
And the world they live in  
Gets brighter. 
 
People say  
They have butterflies  
In their stomach, 
When someone tickles their heart 
But all I feel is a burn 
As if acid churns up my soul. 
It rises in my guts to my heart  
Perhaps to burn the love  
Or the fingers perhaps that tickles it, 
Perhaps because  
the butterflies in my stomach 
are dead! 
In others they remain dormant  
In mine they just died for living too long  
In hope but no fingers to carve their world. 
Maybe they died in their pupas 
Suffocated by all the strangling hands, 
Or maybe they flew away  
In search of someone in the past. 
But the acid I feel 
Is their ashes still ablaze, 
I guess that is what is most probable 
That they died long ago,
Been stuck there for too long 
Held hostage by my fear 
And burnt by the matches
People unknowingly rubbed along. 
And so every time something, 
Every time you tickle my heart, 
I guess it is good for it, 
Fire burns in my stomach, 
Rises up my guts  
And I run to throw up, 
To throw it all away. 
I don't think I am made to tickle. 
I have fire in my heart, 
It burns everything away  
And I have carcasses of wings to clean up!

I want a room with a window,
White walls of the sun,
And a floor from the trees,
A hole for the stars to be seen.
I want a curtain across the door
The door far from the window,
A bed inches from the floor
Where I sprawl across
Just next to my bookcase,
A few pillows on the ground,
A soft rug below.
And the sun will burn through every morning
But only to burn the night cold,
And when it rains
It patters my home
And I see it roll from
The first drop of birth
To its journey of tiny rivers across.
And when I have much to think
And none to speak to,
I will watch the moon dance
With the clouds of disguise,
And I will watch and watch
Until sleep lulls me by.
I can picture it all so well,
So vivid, so detailed,
Almost feeling the heat of the sun,
Hear the sound of the rain,
The memories of the stars,
But here I am,
Sitting and sitting
Knowing what I want
But having no clue
How to get it, to get there.
I wanna make a home
A place of my own,
But here I am
And I can't go.