I belong in the heavens
and then I'm under the ground.
I reach the clouds
and then sweep the dirt.
I'm on a rollercoaster
till the end.

No matter how hard I try
I cannot speak
I cannot write
I cannot live

Is it okay to sulk when you know you’ll be better later?

Her hardened feet and cracked heel
brush against the muddy ground.
She travels on foot to fetch water
as she withers away into the befouled.

Sometimes all we have to do is trust each other.

Poetry is the simplicities of life.

"Goodnight, sweet dreams"- I used to say.
Then when I came back home
after staying at grandma's for the holidays with the cousins,
I listed their names as I went to sleep,
good night, sweet dreams accompanied with each.
"Good night-sweet dreams, Nani Ji"
"Good night to everyone whenever your night might come"
"Sweet dreams to everyone whenever your night might come"

I was just a little boy
when I asked why I couldn't run in the traffic;
when I bathed in the inflatable pool and didn't get out;
when I locked my mother in the room;
when I locked my cousin and myself in the room to play with our toys;
when I was puked on by;
when I scraped my bruises in fun;
when I got a fever after I saw that lost kid at the mall;
when I ran in the hallways in races with my friends;
when I told my mother everything;
when I was innocent.

You can take something,
but can you take nothing?
You can take their life,
but can you take their soul?
You hit alright,
but can you hit no more?
You can start,
but can you stop?
You can stop.
You can stop.

Poetry is the subtleties of life.

I could just break down and cry.
But I could also get over it
in the fear of being judged.

-Can I talk about it?
~Can you?
-I cannot.

A house is not a home,
your heart is a place where I am
but that's not where I belong.

Life is attempting to walk down the stairs in darkness.
You can get better at it if you're familiar with them.
It gets better with time. But what if doesn't?
You'll stumble and fall like a toddler.

A chalice filled with the wine of word,
love rotted with time into hurt.
The viscous, darkened liquid
runs in veins instead of blood.
Bubbling liquids spew out
of my decaying mouth.
Bloodshot eyes are searching for
a familiar hand to hold.
Do not ask about the soul,
it's already sold.

We're kids- all of us.
Then,
why do we force each other to grow up?

I am stuck in the trappings of poetry.
I have an exam to answer at 8 am.
I read and rejoice.
But I am sure
that I'll be overwhelmed
by regret in the morning.

They stand high and firm.
Unwavering strength to listen to it all.
All the love and it’s absence
were encountered by these dutiful walls.
Countless beings came by,
some to conserve and some to destroy.
They still didn’t crumble down.
For they had stories to tell.
Memories and existences
that fared the test of time.
Frozen in these walls of being,
are the lives of numerous beings.
Recording their lives
in a concealed script.
Old houses appear desolate.
They are not homes anymore.
Old forts have this despair.
That they wish to share,
But can’t.
It’s their irony.
They’re strong but sad.
Have words to say but can’t.

I look at your fences
and your flimsy nests.
The wind comes in and breaks them.
You rebuild, the bear comes in and breaks them.
Yet you still rebuild.

Let me cry rivers
and not be asked about it.
Let me shut myself in my room
and not have people knocking at my door.
Let me pass uninformed comments
and not be embarrassed by the people that surround me.
Let me be a stranger,
a forgettable face in the masses.
Let me not stand out,
or blend into the ordinary.
I am lonely,
let me be alone.

Peaceful nights
and then morning rains,
living through midday fantasy
with fruits for brunch.

Roaming in kaftans
and then cycling in the fields.
To guffaw at our jokes
and sit under the tree.

We're drinking water,
filled to the brim in the glass
to quench thirst
after our outdoor rendezvous.

Dancing to the sounds
of our breaths
and feet tapping to
the throb of our hearts.

Hold me in a
euphoric embrace
as historical wrongs
are corrected.

We'll sleep peacefully
through the night
and wake up at the crack of dawn
to see each other again
in euphoria.

Abysmal despise curtains your insecurities.

A perplexed hand reaches out
and a trembling fingertip reaches the ****.
It circles the burgundy, round grip
with faltering determination
to push the hazel door forward.

All of my heroes died in vain
for me.
I'm not up to their remarks.
Perhaps that's why we have heroes.
Some believe in gold
and find it deep while they
toil the field.
But for the ones
who don't wish for the gold
or are too devastated
by the devastation
their destiny is to die
in and by devastation.
For the majority of us devastated peasants
in the wide devastated field-
our destiny is to
lookup to our dead heroes and fail.
Miserably and devastatingly.

Under an old display of neon lights
two gilded exteriors meet.
Their gold needs to melt
and the lead core bared.
Wilde's prince's lead core didn't melt,
so won't their austere cores.
Their gold melted in the neon haze,
but didn't have the heart
to see their leaden heart
in the bright of the day.

I write to know.
I write to understand.
I write to solve
and I write to belong.

A myriad of people I see.
I lay my eyes upon their deep agony.
A father rejoins broken slippers for his pedestrian tyke.
A couple shops for clothes on the roadside.
A mother holds her daughter and subjected to a terrible cold.
The rickshaw puller shouts for them to move away.
He has his own place to be and children to transport.
They all have their destinations and
sights they need to see.
The clothing they need to wear
and lifestyles they wish to be.
It’s the life they got.
It’s not sure if they wanted it.
With the gaze of an outer observer
I see,
and be unable to read
their thoughts and dreams.
I long to know
the places they are in
and the places they want to be.

I feel like a bird in the wide, blue sky.
An eagle soaring in the wind,
a koel singing melody,
a crow tired by insults,
a dancing peacock insecure,
a penguin broke,
a parrot pretending,
a chicken distressed,
a vulture scavenging,
a mynah invading,
an owl leading,
an ostrich jealous
and an airplane disarming.

We wonder
who is a person
and who is not?
The answer is
can they love
or be loved
or not.

Thunder rages on outside.
I am not the only traveler
who has not repaid his debt.
It attempts to scare me
into succumbing to the dark
and to the rain.
I would like rain
to accompany me on my
endeavors.
But I’m too much indebted
to afford it.
The skies want their
money back
and the heavens
have sent lightning.
They need it back
to bring back order.
Such a concentration of darkness
in one mortal isn’t natural.
They demand it back.
They need it back.
They send the rains
to make me yield to wizardry.
I do not
and smile in hope
that I’ll belong to the rain someday
and rain will belong to me.

Would you help those
who help themselves
or call them selfish?

To live without love is death.
To live honestly,
Is to love truly.
Life is a meaningless void.
Dark, dull, and unafraid.
Populous yet lonely,
Blinding yet bleak.
A land of color coexists,
of love that is cautious and daring.
Transcending human comprehension
And the providing hope
along with its audacity.
It’s power and will to thrive
conquers the misanthropy
Of austere death.

He’s ash now.
He played with ash back then.
He’s dirt.
He was dirt back then.
He snatched their slums
and their palaces
But now he can’t live in either.
He pumped out dirt
into the river back then.
He’s going back
to the river now.

He sighed a sigh of relief.
He had wailed on his death.
His own death.
A death of a misanthrope.
He was born once more.
Like a phoenix, he rose
from his own tears,
And turned into an
angel.

Normalcy is a strange word.
No definition is certain and
allowed to be called “normal”.
Differs in different lands.
And never asks for
Hate to come in its absence.
And no-one can seem to fulfil it.
Normalcy seems like a dream far away,
in a distant land that is strange.
Sometimes,
I wonder if anyone is normal.
If not,
Normalcy is perfection.
We strive for it.
And we practice diligently.
And fail to achieve it wholly.
Yet we find normalcy
that is perfection partially.

Candles blow.
They die out.
The fire does
and consumes the candle with it.
The fire was the highlight.
Now it’s gone-
And the candle
suddenly lost its worth and value.
It now lays grief-stricken
And attached to the floor.
Refusing to let go
of their places in the show.
It let illumination enter our world.
And now it’s dead.
We scrape its place from the floor.
Scraping away at its existence.
For this one now and forevermore.

Words aren’t spoken.
Words aren’t written.
They are felt.
Words are unknown.
Words are dead.
Until we come to terms with them.
Words are heavy.
Sometimes bold.
To speak is an art
that everyone fails.
****** by words is wretched more.
But they can heal.
They eventually do.
Tend to wounds as no-one can.
Oh words can bring to life
and send to sleep
a person’s nightmare or dream.

The sun comes out
and the moon’s still there.
Hanging there in its desolate despair.
Mornings were never my type.
I could never see my dark friend die.
It’s scarred eternal surface never heals.
The lover in the night sky says-
“Dear I’ll bring the moon for you.”
Not knowing they both had it in them too.
All the darkness yet all that light,
Fading away into the darkness
is what it exists to do.
The glass half empty
or the glass half full
Doesn’t matter cause the moon’s too far.
Too far for a normal’s reach.
Perhaps that’s why it’s there,
for artists to reach.
Yet,
Most of us have been to the moon.
Because living is beautiful art too.

The clock strikes twelve.
The day is about to die.
This date would never come again.
Another day, lost.
Martyred itself to the power of time.
Another day, wasted and dumped.
No purpose in the dark solitude.
The sun did not shine today.
The moon hid.
Darkness remained the dictator.
It did strike twelve.
But, just to reset itself to zero.
It will strike twelve once and forevermore.
Just to be lost in charcoal, forevermore.
“Pointless”, I said.
“Open your eyes”, he said.
And I woke up for another day in the point-fullness.