A Night before Stalingrad
It was a cold night as far as I could remember,
The trenches were never empty
Smoky on a mound of Earth
Smelt of carcasses and dwelling death
Dawn had forbidden us
Much like how our governments had abandoned us a long time ago
Time left its grim stain on us
Many faces came, many faded-
Some died with valor
Some with false glory
I cursed fate for leaving me alive
I did not want any glory
But now I had a purpose to serve
And desertion would make me
A traitor- hypocritical for how
a second of thought could foreshadow
years of strife.

The punk had foresaken his mischief
The tailor measured corpses
The poet had put down his pen
The graduate his degree
I remember my life as a fisherman
before all the bustle and *******
patriotism took its root.
The mayor promised us a warm bed,
food for our families but were they of any good?
Now that most of the backs to lay on that comfort were buried under soil that claimed no identity.

A new month- new recruits
Their eyes always at first gleamed with dreams,
Oh! To slit the enemy, raise the flag above their dead body.
Only if it were that easy!
Their eyes always drowned once they witnessed the atrocities.
New soldiers kept on piling
Much the better for the "big man" to spread their irony.

Some ol' merry jester once had given us our smiles back
only for him the next day to be shot right between the eyes,
Since that day- our division had seen no hint of joy
But every now and then we raised our glasses and made a toast to his soul.

The brave men beside me sobbed and let their tears flow like streams of an unprecedented waterfall.
We hugged and embraced each other to feel what might've been our last night of company.
I felt no remorse- no sadness, I had not much to look up to
I knew my battallion was to be wiped the next morning.
I let out a deep sigh and took out my wallet,
glancing into the still photo of my massacred family.
I gently wept and prayed to Almighty
To take me into his arms-
To take me completely
To my family
To my family.

It was a cold night and time moved slowly
It was a cold night
It was a night before Stalingrad.

The devotees chanted and cried mystical hymns as
they offered the Great Heavens, a mortal
A soul too young to mother
A soul too perplexed to fathom. 
Her gaze dampened with tears of duty
The hollow bags under her eyes ****** her sorrow into an etch of black
My revolt denied to cross the walls of my throat. 
My nerves shivered and my world sank beneath my feet
To watch a ritual was enticing but
To clench through horror was different. 
"Oh! Good Heavens" I cried
Let her have the luxury in paradise
she was stripped off here in hell. 
She tried to utter a cry but the crude ember
started to feed on her
He put her hands on her and slowly her holiness was rinsed off by his evil. 
Her fair white pearl like skin boiled under her saree
Her hair that ran like waterfall curled into fiery strips of fume
We could smell the putrid but they smelt fulfilment and the whirl of a complete cycle
Her dead husband was already blackened and reduced into specks of coal
Her flesh melted under her own eyes- 
The men who desired her youth once were struck by the contours of a ghoul. 
Half the grown ups turned away
Not with remorse but with a smug and I-
Too baffled to move, watched the last skin on her drip into nothingness
A month before I had seen her dangling with mischief under the branch of the village tree
A day ago I had seen her willingly putting a smile to become a Sati
A few minutes ago I heared the shriek of burden
Now, I see a mould of coal before me
That was the last I had seen my sister.

To be Dylan's voice-
With a shriek within tremors
In a land of folk, to land like a rolling stone
To be like a strum in silence
Cacophonously universal
Adversely everyone's but uniquely one's
To be a confluence of revolution
Where the voiceless meets the harmonica
Where the withered fingers meet the guitar
A complete unknown like a rolling stone
To be a gust of wind
Blowin' with answers
A genesis of alienation and the burden of perfection-
None's imitation and none's to claim
A centurion's gift but with seclusion as a friend
To be a stream of response
To be a protest
To be Dylan's voice-
To be Dylan.

The tiny moths circled around me as I lit my cigarette to feel the warmth of my mouth,
A bother to sway them away; I just stared perplexed at a fading reality

"My name is Sarah", said she
mirroring my dead wife
Not much to my surprise
I heard the bugs talking every now and then
"What brings you here? This open balcony that no one inhabits?", Said she
"To escape from myself", said I
"It's funny, how you swallow what we call home and it doesn't burn you"
I replied, "but it does **** me, even if it doesn't burn me"
"Oh!", she gasped.
Not understanding what I meant
"I will let you stick to my body just to feel the warmth I stole from your home", said I

She swarmed over my body and slowly her friends joined in too
They felt the warmth of their stolen abode
and I felt the warmth of bodies
They kissed me all over, savoring every trace of their destroyed home and I fell limp but complete

"Your warmth is growing dimmer", said one
My body turned cold and my eyes shut close
I died on that fateful day giving them back a piece of their right
When the morning light fetched sunrays
They had died with me
Laying in bulk beside me.

Ever since we gained consciousness
We were-
Taught to slit throats; not algebra and geometry
Handed not cricket bats but automated rifles

Taught not to play but to hang them by the tree
Dressed not in uniforms but bandanas over our forehead.
Sworn not to education but to shoot heartlessly

We raided a village and killed the head
Took some more of their kind
Decapitated; watched the green turn red
We smoked their temple; raised our flag
Watch the light fade
As they fell into eternal nap.

Their forces marched with guns and bombs
But mostly useless; for we hid among shadows
We reigned over branches and slit them when they least expected.
We had sworn our loyalty when we hadn't learnt to speak
We felt no joy; no sorrow
We didn't know what our future would be,
Would it be a death in the form of a bullet?
Would it be called normalcy?

One raid complete- forced to fight the next
We were always fighting for they said we were the best,
All of us had our appetite for blood,
I robbed a mother of her child-
Snapped the little thing right in front of her.
Shot one up his ******,
Plucked one off his ear-
A girl my age watched with horror, the advocacy of a Devil-
Smeared in mahogany red with gushes of fluid splashing on my face.
I gripped the machete, ready to strike
But her eyes were an aegis of her own-
An iron resistance against something that had never felt warmth,
My heart ached as if Hell was gavelling every part of me.
To tear that perfect face of hers- To gouge out her aegis with my warhammer.
Every step towards her felt heavy, so I pulled out my pistol
Aiming right towards her, my finger jammed as if the metacarpals were commanding me to stop.
I had like a Godman bestowed mercy upon her to cover up my inability to blow her the Death kiss.

As I turned the other side, a bullet flew beside my ear-
The "swoosh" rapidity bedazzled me
With anxiety and fear, I turned my back
To see my Dead Deity,
The comrade shot her dead- his unholiness pierced through her shield.
A string passed through my head and it gifted me a memory;
Of us playing in the sand building castles
Of us going to school together
Never had I seen the beach,
Never had I experienced learning,
So what was that?

After the raid was done, I plucked a blood-stained daisy and placed it over her dead body.
And to this day, I think
How life would've been
If it was different and she was with me.

I once was a pirate, terror at sea
Sailed past all currents, tamed the fiercest beasts,
Kissed the wild waves, achieved unmatched feats
Mortals shivered, the o-cean; scared of me!

Cursed was I, heart a lock; needed a key,
Tasked to venture where even God retreats!
My crew fled- left to face my last defeat.
Drew my sword- if I were to die, Let be!

Long hours I searched, until at last, drew nigh
A maiden, one unlike I'd ever seen
Each breath, each glance drew me ever closer

Realised there was no key, it was a lie,
Drained my soul, to claim me was Death quite keen,
The Siren sang death, The pirate's wrath; over.

In the sky as the children gazed,
They saw not a prism of rainbow
But ***** of fire-
Burning orange, reeking of death.

"Ceasefire, they said" the words betrayed
A mother of two lay dead
A father of three; beheaded

The echoes of joy, no longer reciprocated;
Only the cold shrill of silence repeated,
"Abbu, run faster" "Ammi ! Behena ! Bhai !

The skyline burnt with the missile's glare,
Children- elder, in smoke- filled air
With each minute; a corpse found,
Their homes now buried underground.

Their leaders chant "We'll avenge, we'll maim!"
So they trade blood in the same old game-
Missiles for Missiles, name for name.

The cartographer's pen trembles
Drawing borders in erased pencil,
While the land bleeds real ink.

Hospitals bombarded, Cities destroyed,
Only the schools remain,
But what use of it?
There are no students left to train?

At the UN, they count the toll
While the cemeteries overflow-
Your calculators can't handle the numbers!
The suffered missed on countless Decembers.

Oh God! What sins have they to repent?
How many dawns must break?
Before the children see a rainbow again.