Listen to the voice of woman
who speaks when she wishes,
who tells her story the way she wants it.

Listen to her fight.
She fights like a woman,
no weaker than a man.

Listen to her choose.
She chooses for herself,
and her choice is human.

Listen to her opulence.
A personable woman
who’s amiable to her own will.

Listen to a woman.
Listen to her describe herself
because I sure cannot generalize.

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.

Charge down the streets in our stupid dresses.
We parade with our nicest hearts.
It is heartbreaking to hear your thoughts on us.
But honey, calm down we are not going to come for you.

I’m playing the darling diva with the sash.
My friends are the badass *******.
We own the street with the mafia with us.
But babe, calm down we bring no hate to you.

Didn’t you hear the government gave us the right to exist,
Then why don’t you let me be me?
Didn’t you promise me that I could be whoever I wanted,
Then why do you not approve of who I am at the pride parade?

TW: Suicide

God, I can’t imagine the heart it must take to go through with it.
Do not call them cowardly.
They cared enough for themselves,
and they fought their problems in the wrong way.
Do not say they do not care enough.
It’s like standing on the edge of a cliff,
a cliff so infirm that even the breeze could push them off.
Don’t say that they couldn’t be strong enough.
You don’t know the strength it takes to withstand that.
The world had been unforgiving, and they succumbed.
They should not have succumbed.
It’s not as good of a place without them.
God, I wish no one has to be as brawny as they had to be.

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.

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

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

Lasting pain in an everlasting mind
always comes through.
Babbling mouths do not help with the pain,
truth adds salt to the hurting veins.
Blinded by light, my blinded eyes
search for the handle to alter my path.
But it’s almost been snatched away from me.
I have no way out of this unreal reality.
Veering the direction of my pointless life
is what might help me.
The pain I receive remains paralleled to
the pain I give, yet I complain.
I believe I deserve the excruciating chains
that attempt to hold me back.
The pain will last as I live.
But I pick the pain,
and that’s enough for me.

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.

My eyes have been searching for a place to call home.
I have been to Rome and have done what the Romans do.
I have failed to win a place amongst the ranks of caesars.
I have felt the harrowing escapism of not being at home.

I sit inside the colosseum and work in the communes.
I look for a place to reside, as I sway through.
I curse and beat myself up for not being homely.
I walk in the darkest alleys calling it my home.

I said bought the elephantine houses.
I said that I played with the kings,
though I only washed their feet.
I did not feel at home.

I search for belonging,
in my own heart.

Hands try to move without no stimuli,
they fall down.

He tries to smile in the worst circumstances,
he is a fool.

They try to euphemize what hurts,
they are scared.

Ones who write exaggerated emotions,
the people who read it feel the exact ones.

Honestly, criminally and brutally,
honesty is torn down.

Mindlessness peacefully takes over,
it is despised after the crowning.

While taking the chances,
I fall to the ground.

The plants grow in the soil,
and return to it somehow.

The world is the truth,
the world is plenty with contradictions.

Is truth now only a contradiction?

Nothing can be changed of soul
in my possession.
Its rugged, scarred self
hurts and heals.
I now own the soul and
I can’t let it go.
It works as a king in my brain and
lives as peasant in reality.
I am subservient to what I possess.
I cannot change it, but
the soul can change me.
A soul is precious,
so I gave in.
Into tricking another soul,
or maiming a different one.
I gave in and
now I am in agony.
What should I choose?
I will let the soul take over me.

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

On the rollercoaster of life,
when up above the clouds
where happiness is plenty
sadness is out of sight and out of mind.

On the rollercoaster of life
when down in the lowly trenches
where we lay embroiled in sadness
happiness seems non-existent.

We get lost in the moment
and forget that something else
except this current situation
exists beyond our control.

But when we are able to see
beyond what’s out of sight
and out of mind,
true sight is achieved.

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.

Four people in different rooms
with phones in their hands
and thoughts in their heads
that they are trying to suppress.

They are hurting underneath
the smiles and faces which gleam.
They blurt out things that they do not mean
and hurt the hearts of the glossed-over faces they meet.

They are dishonest and keen
to despise when the slate is clean.
Hearts of mortar they hide
by accompanying the blind.

I sit and observe
their pacts build and crack.
Lawsuits are filed and lawyers remain unpaid.
Changes are made but not sustained.

No injustices were done
to the ones with phones in their hands.
A choice was given to improve
and they said no.

I took the vehicle to your house.
I didn’t meet you when you died.
But I know you wouldn’t have recognized me.
Your vision failing you,
and I’m hoping your heart hadn’t given out.
You drank tea before you slept
and asked the rotis to be kept for dinner.
I long for your voice,
I am scared that I'll forget how you sounded.
I cannot imagine how it would have felt.
I am terrified if I imagine your last breaths.
I received the call announcing you had "expired".
My reality did too.

Stealing bits and pieces of information about myself from people I don’t know.

They tell me that I have my grandfather’s eyes or that I behave like my uncle when he was young.

I look for these parts, these broken pieces I lost. I don’t know when I lost them, though.

An aunty I meet will tell me that she heard I was good at geography. I don’t like geography. Or do I?

Don’t blame me for trying to find the shattered pieces of the mirror in which I hope to see my reflection.

But deep down I know even after I find all these shards, I won’t see a reflection of myself.

Because I won’t recognise the glossed over person in mirror.

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.

They’re killing people of my kind
How do i stay calm when i have no kin
This great carnage has led me to believe
That my mind is black unlike our flag
You’re on with your lynching,
and us huddled in fear.
We’re the fly on the spider web,
stuck once- and forever dead.

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

Wanting to change clothes because the ones I’m in aren’t comfortable.
I understand what you mean when you say I look alright.
Seeing you stare another man because you think my clothes aren’t workable.
I don’t hear any of your ******* because you don’t want a fight.

You chew the meat as if you’re seeing it for the first time.
I almost puke at the sight of your gruesome meal.
You puke after too many vodkas with lime.
I couldn’t even get to touch my meal.

Dinner date nights
always end in
screaming fights
and broken glass in the bin.

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.

Healing is never a singular process.
People are there to help you.
It never follows a singular, linear line.
Your thoughts are all over the place,
not singularly spread out.
So, do what is right for you.
Heal the way using your own route.

I have not worshipped them far and wide.
I have not preached what I have learned.
I have not fasted for a thousand nights.
I have not helped more than I have hurt.
I have not done what I should have.
I have not longed for visions.
I have not had revelations.
But
I have met the poor begging for food.
I have witnessed people turn them away.
I have seen people loving so passionately.
I have heard of the dacoits threatening to ****.
I have read the books preached by the leaders.
So I conclude I have met god, whoever that might be.

Woven from wool
is a sweater
she gave to me.
Our love so minuscule
is in this sweater
“Wear it not freely.
I don’t want you to drool
every time our sweater
reminds you of me.
But loose it not,
Remember only the love
which hadn’t wrought.”

I don’t know what to do about myself.
It seems like nothing is really working anymore-
How i speak, write and feel- it obviously isn’t working.
How I’m sitting because the mosquitoes are attacking me.
It isn’t working that I’m speaking to nobody.

You know, what is working?
The light is working,
I have enough food in the kitchen.
I have a roof over my head.
I’m wearing clothes that I adore.
I have a lot of books from which I can study.

Things seem to be bad.
But then,
They’re not as bad as they could be.
I’m thankful for that.
I’m really happy for that.

Sometimes, happy isn’t enough.
Sometimes, you gotta be sad- real sad.
Sadness for each person is different.
My sadness is different from a person
Who cannot afford food.

My sadness is that I don’t know who I am anymore,
Who I will be,
who or what I will want.
Basically, I know **** about myself.
That is what my sadness is about.

I write about my emotions.
“Why don’t they work?
Why don’t they work properly?
Why don’t they work like I want them to work
Or sometimes, why do they work too much like I want them to work?“

It is just bad that
My emotions look like that to me.
And yes, I hope that I like “Imagine”
When it comes out on Friday.
I hope that “Imagine” works out for me.

I can’t understand
why people want to brand themselves.
Portray oneself as greater or
be the one who squashes the ones under them.

I can’t understand
why people are blind eyed.
Oblivious to others
or unaware of one’s own self.

I can’t understand
why people want to stay the same.
Reluctant to change
while knowing they are wrong.

Deep dark days led me to believe
that I couldn’t speak
but shout and scream.

I floated in a starless sky
with the rejects
but absent was the moon.

I shout and scream in a solar void,
this constellation-
-less grave of mine.

I’m buried with tenebrosity
not in a stellar
tomb but in screams.

The elysian darkness outside is
unparalleled by
the darkness inside.

I breathe out all my insecurities.
I am alive, and content.
Calm and tranquil thoughts
Overcome my body and mind.

My problems seem far away.
They are floating away on a ship.
I am waving goodbye at them
At dusk, when the sky’s orange.

Joy flows within me with grace
Like that ship floating peacefully.
The lighthouse’s beacon turns on,
Breathing light into me.

The cold breeze ruffles my hair
Like my mother would.
I swim back to sleep,
Back from the water.

Still wet, and cool.
Yet, warm enough to fall asleep.

The river seemed gray, muddy and dull.
The fishes had died, so the fishermen starved.
The hard stone on the riverbank was overcome with algae.
The riverside stood still, ruined with its spirit in grief.

All the fishes’ folk attempted to breathe life into the dead.
All fishermen fought fights amongst themselves.
All efforts failed and the folk sank in the cemented graves.
All the fishes’ graves stood six fishes apart.

Death in the river and at the riverside became customary till none were left.
Death came to the fishes and their folk.
Death was brought to the fishes by the fishermen, they brought
Death onto themselves.

Poetry is the simplicities of life.

The sailor at sea
sends a letter to his wife who's
working as a seamstress
to make her life as free
as it once had been.

"Darling, the winds
Have not been kind to me.
My time has come, and
In the chariot of death -
I stand free."

"Take my letter to my lady"-
The sailor begs to the king of the free.
"Then, she will know
I am not to be grieved
For I have succumbed to be free."

Misery’s up and down
the streets of my hometown
where I’ve never truly belonged.

I don’t know the boys who played cricket
in the park or the friendly couple
that sat on the bench at the railway station.

I’m scared of them,
of what they’ll do to me
of what they’ll think of me

that depends on whether
I’m able to show them
my originality.

I’ve never came home all sweaty
from a cricket game
I’ve never known how to play cricket.

I’ve never made a friend here.
All I’ve ever known is school,
and poetry.

My self-identity’s forged
by not mingling with these people
by never mingling with me.

All I wish for here
is to find a way
to sneak my hometown

into a better, future version of myself.

That world is not mine
yet I bask in it.
I cry and laugh sometimes.
All so real
but it’s deception.
To yearn to touch
but falling short of the warmth.
It briefs me on what I want to have
while staying on the side-lines,
All the ****** time.
It keeps on rolling
as my time passes by.
And my tears pearl-down
And my grin turns wide
And my heart’s in a riot.
That’s what happens-
when I look at a
movie screen.

I switch between believing myself to be great
and then crying for what seems like eternity.
I ride the rollercoaster
with the high-highs and low-lows.

The “high-highs” consist of paradise and normalcy.
The “low-lows” contain self doubt and abnormality.
I am a bird in the sky
then an insect in the grave.

I fly and become one of those euphoric beings.
Then, I become an insect and compost the dead.
I spread my wings wide to waft.
I crawl in the crypt like a creep.

I am but a bird and the insect.

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

To put my thought to words is not an easy task.
Grueling, struggling and pacing up and down the mind and make myself constantly ask
what do I want to write.
Random thoughts rushing in to make a vivid, written sight.
Some single unheralded thought jostles out through the mind.
It’s my own unique point of view. Hopefully, one of a kind.

I might drown in the sweats of my own leisure.
It speaks to me, “Where have you been?
Why have you been working?”
It holds me down like a prisoner
Who most times wants to rot inside, or else run far, far away.

My jailer is the trappings of useless fountains.
And my inmate- a better version of myself.
The bars are selectively permeable.
They only let me out when I’m enlightened
And throw me back in at the slightest hint of bore.

I am a convict,
because I am human.

The old mud covered traffic cone
is standing there in its orange, triangular entirety
A little boy in his fifth year is walking with a kitty.
He trips down on the cone.

He calls for help as he sees his blood.
The mother comes rushing in.
He is hurt by the acidic grass and mud.
She too, falls down because of nearby the metal bin.

They both lay there,
in the grass, mud and trashcan dirt.
The mother called her husband first.
He came running in to help his wife and son.

The kid would cry (oh that imp),
complaining that the metal bin
and the traffic cone hurt his mother and his chin.
The mother dusted herself off and walked with a limp.

It’s so difficult to make sense of a mind.
If there were lesser people of our own kind,
just 5 humans all-alike.
It would be bad, and no differing psych.

Diversity is messy and large.
That is the way to like it.

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.

Poetry is the subtleties of life.

To have to say goodbye
when you really want to speak your point.
when you really hit it off with a boy.
when you really want to spend more time.
when you really have to stay and cry.
Oh boy, goodbyes are plenty.
What matters is how you pull yourself back up
and return if that’s what is to be done.