what makes us beautiful? printed notes sanctioned by the government? three layers of plastic that attaches to the skin. electricity that runs in your spines, blue rays invading your lonely night. a night where jasmine’s weep because you’ve lost sight of their existence.what makes us beautiful? pixelated rays emitting diodes of dopamine. colours and colours of chrome attached to screens. what makes us beautiful, then? 360 degree surveillance across borders and borders of human civilisations. what makes us beautiful then? maybe a solitary ray of sun as it wraps around your face at dawn? but how would you know that, as you’re doused from the pixels of yesterday, making you numb enough to make sleep through the morning.

we all have our stories.
stored in cafes, empty beer bottles,
soaked clothes, tattered floppy disks.
old film cameras, b/w reels.
we keep these memories with us,
and displace them as well.
their cytotoxicity travels
throught terminals of life's airport.
eventually new souls come and go.
terminals change, destinations flicker
on digital screens.
we delay our feelings, fall in love
with the impossibility of circumstance.
we all have our stories,
maybe in poems like these, or
photographs like the screenshot i would take to share this poem.
we all have our stories,
and not all stories are as happy
as the plants kept beside me while
i sit and write this poem down.

my hands tremble on paper,
the sharp pencil crisply glides,
across sheets spread out on the table.
my feelings are laid bare,
dispossessed of the weapons.
history is written in the past.
so why am i worried about the future?
ink laid bare across battlefields of corpses.
these documents have split apart lives,
memories and hopes.
i bury all hopes of being happy in this world.
because what i want must not be confused with what i must feel.
so i hide behind these words,
writing thousands of pages, scrolling past ages and ages of sacrifice.
to only end up
saying nothing at all.
d
  o
     n
         o
            t
          h
       i
    d
e

i am terrible at explaining this feeling. the feeling of not being enough. The feeling of sacrificing life's gold to obtain silver. they say human relationships are pure but what's pure in exchanges which only speak of dreams and desires? what's so pure in exchanges of commodities between souls when the essence of love evaporates in the potency of moonsoon. i think i have done enough for everyone. the emptiness in me is nothing but an anthem of loss of meaning in the miniscule negotiations of life's key moments. and the only way to escape losing my essence is to stop injuring myself and healing the same scars. all over again.

fragments of us,
cerulean skies,
rambunctious weather, we sip our coffee.
the warmth feels like family, the touch of love,
the familial memory is now obsolete,
the the vapor prickling the skin,
rasorial in it's habit,
the flames have a life too.
the windshield wipers, convulse, wipe off,
the stains painted by a stranger's drops,
the sky weeps, in unison with the growling clouds,
they are hungry, because they are tired,
of hiding under the sun.
every person feels like a distant memory,
every feeling feels like a vapor of fantasy,
unbodied by objects,
this life has become a chairoscuro for my body and soul.
fragments of us,
i have come to love objects more than people.
because they cannot hurt me,
as they are metaphors i can understand,
but not feel.

my heartless soul wanders
and leaves the shore.
it reaches the mountains
where the sun never sets.
it hangs dead, lost amongst the stars.
trembles and falls among tree branches.
the echoes of it reach my lifeless body,
but it is too late.
it is already time,
the enigma once lost,
is the voice that lead humanity.
where are you prophet?
where is the truth?
when you are only following
what is right.

how is it that i feel this strange way, even though i choose to ignore it, to brush it aside like noise coming from a construction site.
what is this uneasiness, the shaking of my body at the hands of winter?
do i simply choose to ignore it because i consider it insignificant or is it simply that am not brave enough to face the consequences of such thoughts?
these thoughts that are harder to understand than reaching the reefs of the sea.
i occasionally let the sun burn my skin, and let the rain drench my body hoping i would find answers in suffering,
but all it has taught me is too wiser in taking decisions, as i am confronted with a cold later.
how is it that we could be like liquid, formless and shapeless, sinking deeper and understanding every molecule of our existence?
how is it that we align ourselves with the secrets we hold that we ourselves, are not even aware of?
maybe we have always been like this, forbidden from knowing some parts about ourselves.
yet we think we know the world more, when the secrets within us are lost in the dunes of the desert.
this desert doesn’t really have an oasis, because the water dried up a long time ago, when humans didn’t even begin to question themselves.
to be like liquid now, to be free and yet know our deepest selves, maybe all we need is a little rain in this desert?
but the coast is far, and the winds only carry sand silt.
i wonder if this is how a civilization dies.

when i think of it, i am all but nothing. a tiny speck of dust in this big world vying to survive. all of our deed, whether it be associated with feeling or emotions feel so incomplete. i wish our existence had more to it. when i look at the stars i feel that someone else might be looking at them too. i feel close to this person whom i do not even know. we are all mindless human beings, existential entities. maybe it is time we shed our skin thorough the leaks and cracks the universe has provided us. because we are so much more than just feelings, emotions and metaphors.

If I could tell you that everything could end right now, what would you do? If I escape this night and never come back, would you hate me for the short notice?

If I could just disappear into thin air, would you die trying to find me, or would you move on with the next season? Would you ever understand the depths of my love if I left you an envelope to tell you why I was leaving? To these questions, I can never really seem to find the answer but I hope that when this reaches you, my soul can rest at peace. For so long, in my life I have always been fascinated by the miniscule things that the people that cared for me the most became smaller in every way. Like tiny little objects you lay out on the patio. I was fortunate enough to have you in my life, but if I lose you I would never be able to forgive myself. So please, if you do not find me, don't mourn my loss. Celebrate the time we had and the moments we spent together. Open up a charity or two in my name. the answers that I could never find in my life, you have to find them for me. Please continue to look after the dogs and our children. Let them do, whatever they want in their life. Let them be free because in them, you will see me, and our love will keep on living.

because nothing lasts forever, she said.
and i didn't believe her
because i was  madly in love with her.
i was blind to see
that even stars had a lifetime.
a few sunsets later,
she wasn't there anymore
and i sat there thinking,
what had went wrong?
i realised everything was alright
even when the storms we create
end up taming us
because nothing lasts forever.

i listen to the dead bird sing,
as it lays footsteps for me to follow,
when the wind howls into my soul
i hear the whirring echo
a pregnant fear, a jitter of soul's trauma.
this is not a fairytale, it sings.
small drops of water that fall from the sky
you shall forget the wisp of rain
the touch of grass and
the breath of ocean air
you shall forget it's feeling.
if you keep listening to me, it says.
everything of warmth will evaporate.
and you'll be left with only my voice.
but i want to keep listening
to the dead bird's song.
because it is beautiful.
because it touches my soul.
And plants a seed of magical numbness
just enough to not feel everything else
that would be gone.
i want the prelude to end.
and the chorus to begin.

-arsonpoet

i want to blame her for
the wrong permutations
of time, people and events
that rattled our wan cages
i set her soul free at night
but in the process of unison,
i hit a wall flailing myself
in a well diving deep.
falling or drowning in incense.
even i do not realise.
what is the point of this?
if we have nothing but bodies left.
hearts will beat.
but souls can die.

i ask myself
questions my soul
refuses to answer
because it is soaked
in the silence of this night.

i refrain from anger
i build my castles
with strokes of moonlight
you only see it
in the luminescence of the night.

i lay lifeless on the ground
the sky above is a cutting board
i want to stick objects in there
with tools and utensils of memory.
i have forgotten my roots
because my wings dragged my
by the brink of death.


i wish not to be found
on such nights.
because i am not thinking
but breathing in unison.
i am believing my stories
and singing my own songs.
i am on leave.
and i desire to be.

the scars that skies paint,
on my face are stains,
that i preserve to show my soul.
i am a sucker for strong ffelings,
that often weep and get back up,
to paint colorful billboards in slums.
eyes are just nomads, they only see
the flame that is burning but the flame that's gone
is stored in aphorisms that mother's read
to their children at night, hoping
god will save them, from all above and below.
i seem to find solace, in tying up my body, using words
as knives that tear apart organs piece by piece.
it is better to die in honour, than masked radioactivity,
consuming you, like water in an ocean, like glaciers that do not want to melt and yet are subdued.
how long can someone play hide and seek, how long can u seek
shelter in the reality that often hides it's counterpart.
are you trying to smell the rose, or sacrilege the thorns?
these days will only end, in disbalance, like the ticking diving and
crashing of all the times, where forever was a noun in dystopia.
just stop listening, and start absorbing, time has lost it's crown,
humans have lost their endeavour, and
the only way to be truly sane, is flowing ever eternally like
the shape of water, succulent in all forms.
we are not one but many, scars that will draw out roads for us
to follow, roads that will lead us to meaning to we caanot comprehend with the five senses.
nobody is ready, nobody ever was.
tell me, how do we mourn such a privilege, one we
cannot touch, or feel or sense,
because what lies withing is forbidden to all of us,

on gunmetal my heart beats,
the smoke is winter,
waves rippling across my cold body.
they've kept the coffin alone,
parched on a wooden block.
ropes tie down my ribcage,
my eyes are shredded in holocaust.
all i can do is move my lips,
to raise the coffin,
to end the numb,
and numb the ending.
my companion is nearby,
we collide on empty streets.
where fainter clouds whisper
to our souls.
do not hold back,
because i won't.

living life on paper sheets,
in between nights and days.
paper planes that'll never reach their destination.
phone calls that hang dry like raw art.
painted sculptures are a fantasy,
my sensory hands, are voluble,
in evening's breast.
the clock moans for tomorrow's ******,
and it's dull hums yesterday.
like raw art, on winter.
hanging dry, devoid of existence.
only citizen of the dead soul.

a pulse of kalopsia, tears out existence.
the light is off, the night is silent.
the ravens don't sing,
because the moon is on her period.
strings and strings of night,
are angles across the starry sky,
i haven't found oxygen in me,
but i have found life in my soul.
the noise is silence, and it wakes up the mountains,
the stream is flowing through corners,
the crickets have been silent, because the night is draped in colours that they couldn't see.
maybe they realize that time is galloping across the beards of silence set on the horizon.
the heart has become a fugitive,
running away in endless arrays of despair,
when all it can do is hide on barren fields.
there is no beauty to dismantled feelings,
not in a million years of wind's change.
but there is a strange isotonic throbbing,
to the chest, past the bones.
everytime the night sheds her tears, and the moon watches closely.
facile in face of words that do not exist.
scarce in face of pages that'll never be written.

i am talking about her, dressed in black silhouette, painted with montage,
i can feel her presence, rubbing across the tips of my tongue, salsa through my hair.
her jet black soul piercing into me, a rembrandt only time is seduced to.
i am talking about her, noir necklace, twelve beads, wild heart, fantasy that teases my seclusion.
i am talking about midnight, her winds  her flair, her grotesque, everytime i close my balcony door,
at 1am in the morning hoping the seduction ends and reality sets in on this papercup life.

milked in white sheets, beloved by wild feelings,
the mark of remembrance, draped in evening's beige.
a ghost of nostalgia, a kingdom of lost voice,
the sparrows fed on feelings, while the roads run through narrows.
the heart has scars all over it's tissues,
the love for one is a cemetery.
the work of an assassin is obsolete,
if the constellations of existence,
are just merely temporary.

𝙄 𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙤𝙪𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙗𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙠 𝙥𝙞𝙚𝙘𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙥𝙖𝙥𝙚𝙧,
𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙞𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚, 𝙮𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙨 𝙖𝙜𝙤, 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙚𝙮𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙬𝙤 𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙡𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙤𝙬𝙨,
𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙠𝙮,
𝙨𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙢𝙚𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙞𝙢 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮 𝙥𝙚𝙩𝙖𝙡, 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙛 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙖𝙪𝙩𝙪𝙢𝙣 𝙨𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙧.
𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙖𝙨 𝙙𝙖𝙮𝙨 𝙜𝙧𝙚𝙬 𝙤𝙡𝙙,
𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙗𝙚𝙘𝙖𝙢𝙚 𝙖 𝙝𝙪𝙢 𝙤𝙛 𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙙𝙨
𝙬𝙚 𝙗𝙚𝙘𝙖𝙢𝙚 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙗𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙚𝙫𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙡𝙙 𝙤𝙥𝙚𝙣 𝙗𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙠𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙨𝙪𝙧𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙙 𝙪𝙨,
𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙗𝙚𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧
𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙢𝙩𝙝 𝙤𝙛 𝙖𝙜𝙚𝙙 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨,
𝙗𝙚𝙘𝙖𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙡𝙚𝙛𝙩, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙖𝙜𝙖𝙞𝙣,
𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙚𝙨 𝙬𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙣𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙖 𝙢𝙪𝙩𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙖𝙣 𝙚𝙫𝙤𝙡𝙪𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣,
𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙤 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙄 𝙝𝙖𝙙𝙣'𝙩 𝙙𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙢𝙩 𝙤𝙛.
𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚.

trickles of sweat,
that culcalte into buckets of water,
keeping oceans afloat,
while humans miserable, burning in the waves of unintelligible thought,
the clock chimes, with invigorated rhythm,
the wind is dead silent, as it whispers,
a silent tongue of shrill voices.
the cricketers, succumb to their misery,
in the dead cry, of the night,
owls accompanying children,
to midnight meals of laughter,
whuch would only happen in the dreams,
of a suitor to the polarity, of things.
the walls around here are baked,
with heat and wisps of murmur, that fill
the numbness of crocky ears, leaning to,
unfulfilled silences to which, the grasshoppers dance.

With the wind, it disappeared, fathomed away,
Into the unending horizon of lies and mirages.
I could've chased, and followed, and trailed,
through the mountains, seas and mud tracks,
But I had enough of it all.
I had realized, that life was more than just always chasing,
It is about caring what you have,
before it goes away too,
It is about being at home, where your heart rests,
Sleeping peacefully with a mature choir of feelings,
Dousing the fire of greed.
Forever in certainty.
As some things r better lost than given back.

Degree by degree,
the cold grew outside, numbing all,
in it's way.
The fog bowed down and apprenticed.
But inside, you pulled me closer,
and scales of temperature suddenly seemed,
A lot less important to measure anything.
In unison, our warmth dissipated into each other,
as we knew,
The cold wasn't the only thing growing outside,
but our love too.

Her words danced like wine on my lips,
poetry in my soul and
ecstasy in my heart.

not everybody needs testimonials,
some dead with colours stroked,
at their feet, unkempt, kettles of rage,
boiling and burning, the heat and it's
conundrums has become a melodrama.
it is searing up wounds, once healed,
now spilling blood and secrets, shared
by ties, times and seas of cooking agony.
testimonials are not for, every wandering soul.
as they're also meant for every locked
frolicker.

you often do not know, that people fall in love in many ways. Whether it's just the cusp of destiny or the fate of a lifetime. In between cities, villages, neighborhoods and people. As one knows another, the connection effing humans runs deep, lining  pale sunsets along the way. People feel for each other because they understand each other need's and wants. And once they do, love makes way, into the summer solstice. Hope and ardour mix in the same drink to go on and feel loved slurring away mishaps and beholding a doctor future; the one braided with hope and ecstasy as one and one become two, together.

The sky twirling at bay,
Melodies of summer in May,
Heat stroking farther, forever
In this oblivious weather,
The wind flies high,
Darkness regretted, Light calls,
To enervate the recreated world,
The maze of life,
Is regrettable,
Unforgettable.
But as summer calls,
So do the loving and dead,
And, thus,
The unforgettable becomes forgettable.

The taste of true wine,
isn't the one that makes you,
paint crimson skies in your life,
when clouds of benevolence and doom,
control the cup of life.

The true taste of wine,
Is naive and benign.
It undresses your soul,
and tangles with your language.
until you find the truths,
you never had the courage to stumble on.
The true taste of wine,
often makes you the magician,
by living your life with you,
But making your realise there's always more.
To be done, felt and lived.
There is always more to melancholy,
as there is, to the language of the lips.

There is in it all,
a reason.
For you to lose, to gain, to fall,
to rise; to prosper in all.
It is what makes a human vibrate,
his originality rather than his deceit.
The world spins around, and waits for none.
And, so shouldn't you too.
Give what you can take, and take what you get.
People out there do not have enough,
and when we really help them,
a piece of us becomes whole each time,
piece of us, that heals, in the process.
And, it is for a reason; a greater good.
To heal, we have to give more and take less.
And the reason for it all,
will shine bright in your face,
even in the midst of gloom, for a diamond,
outlives pitch black gorged darkness, even in centurions.
as light prevails in the scrimmages of reason.

You don't have to be alone, to feel empty,
It is a feeling that feeds on you, ebbs your strength,
makes you vulnerable to faith.
You can be in a room full, of happy souls,
and still, the cusp of emptiness might sneak through the door,
and give you a nudge in the direction loneliness.
It is about that strange feeling, that seeks in, like mildew, or vaseline
after a wound, scratching the surface,
barely making contact with the inner skin,
and yet gripping you with pain,  and bleeds of trauma.

When you will look around, you'll see, so many people,
with bright smile on their faces, alluring eyes, the ones,
who look like fountains, beautiful ones with pure purpose.
But, the truth is many among them, are still not what you see.
The crust, the cover of souls are very happy, and yet, there are things missing inside of them.
Somebody who might wish for a kid, somebody who has jiust lost his sister, somebody who has a disease, eating on him,
snatching away his life, meant to be surged atop exuberant mountains.
People hide it so well, you wouldn't notice if you don't look closely.

The pain lives in each of them, feeding, breaking, disintegrating them.
The more they ignore it, the more it hurts.
The fact is accepting, it's a part of you, of who you are,
a fragment of your identity.
Because accepting it, makes you versatile, it makes you understandable.
And once, you are understandable, to people,
You become complete, within yourself, and you don't just barely scratch the surface now,
You go deep into understanding who you really are, and that makes you strong.
Because when that loneliness heals, it is one zeus of a feeling.

The cool night air, raids my skin,
embraces my breath, and holds on to me,
tighter.
As if whispering in my ear, "I love you."
on midnight over the dark horizon.
I sink the feeling of mud on my feet,
my whiskery feet, ebbed with soil.

I feel naked, not in the sense, I'm bare and without apparel,
but of the feeling,
That this is my true self.
Where my wild fantasies can dance,
to every notion and every chord,
of midnight's music, on fret boards, pumping life.
The fact that I am who I am cusps me harder,
and my fantasies, pull me up,
into the musical, whimsical Arabic night.

I rediscover myself, in shattered trees,
left by the wind,
lightning crackles, dancing with joy, as I dance too.
A dance with the devil, the wind spiraling around me,
My thoughts throttled, pushing boundaries.
And my fantasies, becoming my ecstasies,
as the wind slows down, leaving me in relaxation,
like after a man's ******.

how would you feel,
if your soul is blown away,
by the night air, the breeze,
into unknown places,
among unknown people.
while you'd be hoping for it to return,
feeling empty, the void in you so deep
and threatening.
that it penetrates your feelings,
that hand dry with the clothes now.

and you would wait for it come back,
to fly back to you, and make you feel,
yourself again.
but you know that it won't,
because you kept it caged for so long,
in the boundaries of guilt,
that it wants freedom now,
more than ever.
a life for itself,
out of your body, that kept it,
shimmering it's glow, diminishing it's existence,
for so long, it often forgot, it's light had existed.

On a lone winter evening,
The sun dipped over the horizon,
Awaiting its blithe.
The sky thoughtful and desiderate.
The twinkling of the sky,
Will soon fly.
Heaven is propounded,
Human mind is disrupted.
The unsteady murmur of insects,
The shrill voices of people.
Exonerates the cold, fog sunken air.
The evening walls down along the harbour.
The moon mightier than ever,
Lusting it's magical glow.
On Fantasies and realities of the time.
Hereby the night flows,
From the courtyards of the rich,
To the rags of the of the woebgoene,
And the brok
Shall rise.
And rise, And rise,
And rise again,

On that lone winter evening.
-Arunav Hazarika