I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because the last time I opened up to someone artistically they told me it was pretty dark and I should keep it to myself.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because I was raised in a culture that was anti love and pro meaningless ***. I saw endless commercials about movies that glamorize a lifestyle in which your body is fulfilled but your heart is ignored and at that impressionable age I learned my heart came second but my allure came first and the less I cared that happier I would be and I carried that belief around with me the way I used to carry around a Bible as a child.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because of the time that I opened my father’s phone to reveal a family secret I would hold to this day against my own moral instincts unraveling miles of insecurities wondering if I’m not a good enough daughter or if he stopped loving my mother or if true love was never real and although I had been taught marriage was my purpose, it was what I believed would make me happy, maybe rings aren’t enough to stay in love and maybe people’s feelings change and maybe no one actually has a “one true love” and that this purpose I had been taught was really an endless wild goose chase that only lead to broken families and lost souls.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because sometimes I still wonder why I fell into an abyss of toxicity at such a young age. And when I say wonder I don’t mean a trivial ponder, I mean I contemplate every possible reason why the person who I once believed held the universe in her eyes would lie to my face, why she never kissed me in public and our love was always a secret, why she valued girls with blue hair but my blonde hair was not good enough, why I had to hide bruises from my family when I was still in high school or more importantly, why at the time, I thought I deserved them. These thoughts, this lingering paranoia that I am undeserving of healthy love, they muddy my interpretations of real life and distort reality and effect my relationships. My doctor would call these intrusive thoughts, my best friend would tell me they’re symptoms of PTSD, but I have come to realize that I’ve been burned and I am damaged and I hope to god I can recover.

But you,
Oh god, you
You can write this poem. You can be my safety net while I’m free falling in love. You can be the one to listen to my mental tilt-a-whirls, you can be the one that introduces my body and my heart, you can be the one that calms the storms in my mind when I’m questioning the love I’m deserving of. You are the one who makes sure I fall asleep in my bed after drunk nights, you are the one that still sees my value after acknowledging my flaws.
You can write this poem.

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Today,,,I am as fresh as yesterday
My black hair has a thread of gray

Ten Commandments right in what they say
Love and kisses to all without any doubt or betray

Plant Roses or myrtle tree regularly not only in May
Open your heart to all seasons with Golden Ray

Touch my heart where your finger lay
And Listen to the sweet bells over the bay !

My black hair has a thread of Gray
But, Today, I am as fresh as yesterday

When sea grows stormy, Long prayers , I say ,
Asking for those gifts again my Lord gave yesterday

I dare not move my dim eyes any way
My Lord is in the fields, on the seas, in the winds at play,

Written by
~~~Jawahar Gupta~~~

About twenty-nine thousand kids die everyday
And I wonder why I was blessed to grow up
Why did I get a chance to grow up,
In a roulette system of unfavorable odds
They let me have a life and tried to say
I should thank all my achievements to a god.
Don't take the little I earned
And say it wasn't mine to earn.

These days aren't all easy, the nights are a blur
I found the best friends in people who didn't know who they were
Growing up and forgetting to throw up their hands
Then defining themselves by jobs, they happened to land
****. Weren't we just kids, can you feel that?
Hold on a second, let me take you back.

Remember that time, back in Szumski's basement
We spent no time practicing, Mitch on drums, Clark on bass
I started singing, no stage, but it felt like a taste
Of what our lives would be like making it
Every wasted night, not a night felt wasted.
Not a night felt wasted. Remember?
Pretending we could skate and scooter
Even if as the summer's end kept coming sooner
We'd never admit we were doomed. To grow up.

We mostly split, seperate ways, that's how life plays
Speaking in tenses of old acquaintances, "I'm doing okay."
I wonder how often we really are okay when we speak that way.
A million thoughts a minute fly through my mind,
And if I'm being honest, sometimes, I just miss you guys.
In the past six years, I've felt like a failure, a champion,
A father, a loser, and all the others in between.
If growing up for you has been like it is for me
I'm sure you know exactly what I mean.

Grace chose the poise of your
neck, what spring learned from
winter in white homage.
You longingly capture, and look
back at fate...your delicate head
sent slowly down upon its
pillowy body.
White, whited out...water clear
as invisible.
I dearly depart, I dearly arrive at
what dream settles upon you.
I loved you so much as you slept,
O swan, O Saraswati~