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Dec 2020 · 388
Hope and Dreams
Anavah Dec 2020
Hope and Dream are two sisters:
Bickering and quarrelling all the time.
Neither believes the other is better.
Neither trusts the other to the machinations
Of time. Self-dependent and codependent:
Such an odd duo they are at times!
They are their worst accusers by nature,
Yet they are partners in crimes.
Hope often puffs up the dream,
While Dream takes Hope seriously.
Both sisters then fall out suddenly
In the aftermath of a confrontation
With reality. But when Dream is broken
Hope picks up the pieces
Joins them up with broken shards
Of a resurrected self.
Dec 2020 · 666
Banyan Tree is Dying
Anavah Dec 2020
The Banyan tree is dying, the little boy exclaimed

Who would believe him though?
It was not just a tree but a legacy,
A witness of generations.

The Banyan tree is dying, the farmer complained

Many a hot afternoon
He had sought its shade
What an inconvenience.

The Banyan tree is dying, the priests shouted

The holy site had led to
Many days of profit
And few days of satisfaction

The Banyan tree is dying, no one did anything

Time withered its branches
Termites ate away the roots
And the trunk fell like a giant.

The Banyan tree is falling, the workers cried.

Work to be done
Land to be cleared
Nobody cares.
A piece on apathy in social concern, relationship, moral concerns.
Nov 2020 · 847
House
Anavah Nov 2020
The walls have managed to keep me well-aloof and apart
It was March just the other day
My prison cocoons me in the cool autumn wind
Not sure of what danger is out there
War, virus, riots and ****
It’s a crazy world, I am safe.
I question my safety now and then.
My sanity I question more often.

I twirled in front of my dresser
Posing for acquaintances
Smiling through the boredom
Of never-ending video conferences.
The strain is showing through
On threadbare patience
Straining at the slightest provocation.

The glaring screen tempts me  
Into one last indiscretion
Of unreasonable outrage.
Elections, propaganda and
Undeserved praise
Who is worthy? You say.
Valid question.

The stench of my stale room
Reeks of carbon dioxide
The air around me
Threatening death
Inside outside
Masks always existed
Now they only cover more
Not just your intentions
And it is fine; Nightmares
Are better hidden

My prison cell comforts me
And I get accustomed
To the confinement
Of my own house
Months have passed
Days are passing
Minutes seem longer now
I haven't written in a long time. 2020 has mostly been stagnant with all the paranoia of an unknown disease looming over us. It has changed us but not to a great extent.
Jul 2019 · 1.0k
Down memory lane
Anavah Jul 2019
A short walk

Awkward stops

I look through

No window shopping

Just plain criticism.

Fire spitting hate

A long path

Ends abruptly

Because it's unwanted

Past can be

Both excavated

Or buried

Like seeds

Giving rise to

New leaves.
(C) Anavah 2019
Jul 2019 · 213
The Little Urchin
Anavah Jul 2019
He held my gaze that little Urchin
In the middle of the crowded road
He held my gaze with his impish smile
For as long as his attention would hold
A playful smile was on his lips
Though his clothes lay in tatters
The little Urchin was full of life
Rich in what it matters
He flitted towards the end of the street
Where the slums clustered in thickets
I heard the sound of something crashing
And noticed fallen wickets
Many an imps frolicked by
In the guise of deprivation
Yet all that I could see
Survival beyond starvation
But then he flitted again in hurry
As the noon hour chimed
He went to the edge of the road
And over a wall he climbed
Reaching for left overs
He battled with stray dogs
His friends joined in battle cries
Pelted them with rocks
He held my gaze with the life
That twinkled in his eyes
But before I could say goodbye
I knew his eyes had lied
©Anavah 2019
This is an entry for Mirakee word of the day challenge. The word was gaze
Jan 2019 · 269
Future Past
Anavah Jan 2019
My future is in my past.
I know it doesn't make sense but it actually does.
All my hopes of who I want to be
Have been buried with dead ancient dreams.
Corpses of ambitions lie six foot under
With tombstones of pity and mourning.
My future is in my past and I am free
To chalk up everything to destiny
My fate is written in torn pages of time
My hope is no longer mine
Yet my existence is my own epiphany

(c) Anavah 2019
Jan 2019 · 150
Is it Bad to be Good
Anavah Jan 2019
Is it bad to ignore the slight on the part of others?

When judgement calls you to judge

Is it bad to leave things at the hands of justice?

Is it bad to subdue passions for the sake of patience?

Is it bad to want to see good?



Is it bad to reign in the tongue when curses fly?

When blood boils and logic leaves the door

Is it bad to hope for things to improve?

Is it bad to light the lamp of silence when dark winds howl?

Is it bad to speak good?



Is it bad to forgive when wounds are inflicted?

Is it bad to let blood stains be washed in tears?

When tired eyes seek mercy for a wrong

Is it bad to do good when evil seems to persevere?



(c) Anavah 2019
Jan 2019 · 93
One Day
Anavah Jan 2019
One day I will have a home

With a roof that shelters me

One day I will have a home

With a pantry that satiates my needs

One day my home will clothe me in modesty

One day I will have a home

That isn't swayed by the frothy seas.



One day I will have a home

That celebrates my uniqueness

A home that shelters me

From the prongs of society

Poking into my very essence

One day I will have a home

Where the promise of deliverance lingers

Beyond a Sunday afternoon worship.



One day my home

Will not ****** up my peace of mind

Because it will be a part of it

One day my home will welcome me with wide arms

One day I will have a home that wraps me in a hug

When I am broken to the point of no return

A home that will celebrate my joy

One day I will have a home.

One day I will have a home

With a bed that rests my wearied bones

Without questioning my weariness

Without pointing fingers at my uselessness.

A home where the skies will not scortch

The dried tears of the past

Fountains will spring

When one day I have a home.

(c) Anavah 2019
Jan 2019 · 153
My Canaan
Anavah Jan 2019
Oh sweet Canaan

Land of milk and honey

Flowing with promises of divine bliss

Oh Canaan

The fruit of my wails

Your desire my heart assails

Come to me in silent beckoning

Oh Canaan

My lips are parched in desire

Acquiesce to my need for belonging

A roof over my head

That I can be relish in the security

Of a divine and eternal promise.

(c) Anavah 2019
Jan 2019 · 388
Flawed Morality
Anavah Jan 2019
A tarnished fire
Loathe to burn and reluctant to subside
All perishable moments hide
Desire reigns in its monopoly
Of lust greed and avarice.

Logic binds truth to proofs
Passions bind reality to power
Power oozing from one wound to another
Violence upholding peace
Vengeance at the crux of justice.

Peeling off layers of presumptions
The nakedness of beliefs
Voiced in chants of supremacy
Sprinkled with the blood of pointless sacrifices
Purified in hate and prejudice.

Morality is as flawed as mortality
Susceptible to as many ailments
Yielding to the  whims of time and memory
Moments pass and monuments erode
History is retold in fantasy.

(C) Anavah 2019
Dec 2018 · 605
Ode to Time
Anavah Dec 2018
My cruel time, you inspire me to write.
I love the way you flow, run and stagnate,
Invading my mind day and through the night,
Always dreaming about the surrogate.

Let me compare you to a contender?
You are more stoic and more immortal.
Cool frost nips the robins of December,
And wintertime has the righteous cortile.

How do I love you? Let me count the ways.
I love your mortal event, length and age.
Thinking of your portal length fills my days.
My love for you is the temporal page.

Now I must away with a gentle heart,
Remember my dual words whilst we're apart.

(C) Anavah 2018
Nov 2018 · 109
Time bound
Anavah Nov 2018
1
Bound in threads of numbness
I reel in a conscience
Hoping to be satisfied
The story of my life

2
Bound by life
A tremble and a fall

3
Plug
connecting my life
To the lifeline of hope
A flight

4
Rubber band
Tying my hair
Tying my affair
Tying my scares
rubber bands

5
Clay modelling
Shaped up
wound up
Made into
A being apart

6
Mosquito repellent
Sending the suckers away
Keeping at bay
go away

7
Rabindranath Tagore
The poet who created poetry

8
Spam
Filling my inbox
Obnoxious

(c) Anavah 2018
My student gave me random words with time limits ranging from 10 to 20 seconds to test my reflexes and this is the result. Thank You Darshika
Nov 2018 · 80
Random Words
Anavah Nov 2018
1
The mirror looks back at me
And I struggle to barely see
A semblance of who I want to be

2
The Paperweight weighs me down
A millstone around my neck
While my pen bleeds to the empty sheets
Of my latent emptiness.

3
People style themselves in robes
They style themselves on whims
They feign an air of silent cares
While neglecting cuts and trims
Yet they clothe themselves not in
The morals of the times
Weighted words sink deep into
Fertile and watered minds

4
The breath that enters my respiratory system
Gives me my breath of life
Each laboured puff of oxygen
Eases my unending strife

5.
The image of discontent
The image of distrust
Robed in vanity and lust

(C) Anavah 2018
These were random words provided by my student Darshika who wanted to test my creativity.
Nov 2018 · 728
Leaves
Anavah Nov 2018
Worn out withered leaves
Narrate a story of surviving
Till the winter blows it away

The frozen shards of ice
Piercing a beating heart
Bleeding the last ounce of
Hopefulness

(C) Anavah 2018
Nov 2018 · 236
Yesterday's Fashion
Anavah Nov 2018
I turned you on
You tried me on

I deposited on you
All my pent up passion

You discarded me like
Yesterday's fashion

(c) Anavah 2018
Nov 2018 · 704
In My Mind
Anavah Nov 2018
Some people have mind palaces
I have a dungeon in its place

I do not roam about the luxurious memories
I flinch at the various tortures
I vegetate in the various prison cells
Each an old regret and an older memory

Some people savour the past
I am suffocated by it

(c) Anavah 2018
Nov 2018 · 325
Sand Paper
Anavah Nov 2018
We take the time to smooth the edges
That makes us stand out
We are busy stifling our voices
When it is time to be loud
We turn ourselves to ether
To delve amidst the plain
We try to exemplify others
When we are all the same

Sandpaper against my bare skin
Scratches on my raw soul
Trying to put me together
Broken bits to a shattered whole
We shy off when people look
At the scars highlighted with gold
When the fire burns within our hearts
We try to turn ourselves cold

Sandpaper against my bare heart
Scratches drawing out ruddy trails
Scratches on a face all botched
Ripping out the masking scales
Camaflouge and dumb charades
Hiding truth and hinting lies
Sandpaper against my lips
Drawing out wanton sighs

We make the effort to look our best
When the good is defined by others
We take the time before making haste
Suddenly caring who bothers
Yet our worth is in our own hands
How we draw ourselves
Our secrets are our own prison
Our confidence where freedom dwells.

(c) Anavah 2018
Nov 2018 · 1.2k
Fitting into Boxes
Anavah Nov 2018
It was a bag of prejudice ******* with strings of judgement. I would know it anywhere. The chill of its indifference never failed to give me nightmares.

Curious thing this is, never curious about the things that tie, a strange fascination with the catabolic, breaking down bit by bit, every standing bridge, till in loneliness, paranoia takes seed.

You call it religion, I call it fanaticism.
You call it ethnicity, I call it a lack of humanity.
You call it antisemitism, I call it disparity.
Diversity versus equality: we know who always wins.

It is always easier to pull apart.

We pull apart a country, a society, sometimes a family just to fit into boxes that do not matter. Whatever doesn't fit we scatter till we are surrounded by blood splatters.

Cannibalism is bad. It is bad to consume but when you destroy the other when you take away their means of life and livelihood, is it any different from taking their lives?

You notice diversity by the differences, not the radiance of their smiles, that does not depend on colour or creed. It is simply a bunch of basic human need.

But you would rather take than provide. You would rather push everyone aside who is not from your own box and then you put yourself behind locks to protect from those you deprive.

Why not for a change simply be alive, appreciate another life?
Why not smile at another smile, irrespective of race, colour or creed?
A new day starts with a new cry for life, every day, around the world, a new beginning.

Let's open our boxes. Let's give away our prejudices and exchange them for compassion. Let's untie the string that ties us to our antiquated narrowmindedness. Let us spread our wings and fly.

(c) Anavah 2018
Nov 2018 · 260
In Love with Love
Anavah Nov 2018
I never met him.

That did not give me the free reign to judge him, but I did.

I compared him to the countless flawed heroes that fail to hold up to the damsel's doe-eyed trust.

I wronged him by comparing him to the villain that steals into the secret wishes of maiden's lustful desires and vandalizes the sanctuary of their imagination.

I flirted with him in abandon not counting the risk of falling in love with every dimpled smile or deep-throated laughter.

I lusted after him and panted after him hoping that he would be doing the same for indeed lust must be stronger than love.

Ultimately I collapsed in exhaustion and dust sought dust to be united with it, once for all, defiled with it.

It was him who stepped forward and picked me up, dusted me altogether and set me up on a mantlepiece, a prized possession ready to be loved.

(c) Anavah 2018
Nov 2018 · 788
Trying to be Strong
Anavah Nov 2018
I try to be strong in action and words  every day
Every morning I open my Bible and start to I pray
Whispers of imagined blessings  in the starts
Positivity, I have learned that, is a farce

I try to hold up ideals that I have broken before
In the hope that I can redeem myself the next time
The distant bell chimes calling out my death
I ignore the knell in an immortal hope sublime

I follow distant shadows on indistinct walls
My insecurities grace the surface and slither and crawls
I scoff at the reptilian camouflage of self-sufficiency
Knowing it is the pain carrying me on.

I am a ******* that would rather feel than be distant
I feel without expression when all I should do is cope
But instead what I do is hopelessly hope
My obsession with dreams makes me repentant.

Sometimes, on lonely nights, I can't be strong anymore
I reach out for a strong shoulder to cradle my sobs
But they often melt away in my tears and shape my fears
I shiver in my feigned self-sufficiency that calls out to emptiness

Maybe I let my imaginations run wild, wild horses fraying into the night
Maybe I need to let go of impossibilities and accept the practicalities
But I would rather lose myself in eyes I have never peered in
My paradise lurking beneath unseen memories.

(c) Anavah 2018
Nov 2018 · 1.2k
Baptized in Love
Anavah Nov 2018
Why do the drops of blood
Stain the pristine paper
That is my soul?
I did not wish to bleed
Yet my wounds persist to flow
I tell my heart to heed me
Go slow

Why do the drops of tears
Stain the cheeks so dull?
Sighing into forever
Hopelessness immortalized
Yet my silent cries
Go unheard
As emotions vie
For supremity

Why do the drops of water
Promise a redemption
A vibrant baptism?
The peroxide eating into my sin
Stains fading into oblivion
Behind curtains of memory
Under fountains of love

(c) Anavah 2018
Nov 2018 · 2.4k
ENOUGH
Anavah Nov 2018
When I saw her for the first time it wasn't admiration
It was awe mixed with a twinge of jealousy
Her perfection and her confidence intimidated me

When I first befriended her it wasn't just adoration
It was an obsession and a fixation
To be like her in thought and action
Till I learnt to be better than her without being enough
That was when the insecurity started
'Will I ever be enough?'

I wasn't enough at home, not fair enough or smart enough
I wasn't witty or flirtatious enough
I lacked guts and I lacked the temperament
Of a proper twelve-year-old.
I was a doormat and a pushover
Already coming undone at my seams
Trying to emulate perfection through blinded eyes
Every day I scoffed and surrendered to my picture of admiration
Trying to secure her own admission
'Will I ever be enough?'

Then she left me battling my own wars
Hers was to conquer new turfs.
I waited for a while, finally realizing
I was a ship without a captain, left to wander evermore.
I caught a new captain in a bystander who counted his lucky stars
I admired him for being there for me when I never was.
I tried to hold on to an unconsolidated bond of friendship
With a raging doubt piercing through my heart
'Will I ever be enough?'

Many came telling me my worth.
Many left ravaging my already battered heart
Many drank my colourless lifeless blood
Many left a wretched bluish mark
I shrivelled from the inside out
Bloating in the nausea of my being
Every day trying to put me together
Every day losing instead of winning.
One day finally I reached out
Knowing my salvation lies
I put everything behind me and cried out
Only to be put on the side.

That day I realized my worth
When she was hurt by my rejection
When she refused to give me a chance
When I had never received any ever.
My insecurities still lingered
But they were a part of me now
And I did not know how to do without.
I picked up the pieces that meant something to me
Even though she was no more there to see
Yet I knew that she was never enough
Never my horizon, never my turf
I had wings to reach farther
And my flight has thus
Now begun without her.

(c) Anavah 2018
This poem is autobiographical and written to my friendship with my childhood best friend. It is true that we parted ways and she was all I aspired to be for a greater part of my life but a part of me aspires to be more and that is all I strive to be.

— The End —