TRIGGER WARNING (this deals with suicide)


Hands fall down as they try to work in the mills. Hardened, bruised hands are cut and blood drips on the cloth that she's producing.

She has to work there, if she doesn't she has to bear the slaps of her drunken, miserable husband. Her eyes used to dream of skyscrapers and cities. Now, she is stuck in a slum and an endless cycle of misery.

She dreams on of a life she never lived. She wants it so much that she runs away from this world. She finds sweet release as her body is burned.

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.

New dew on the lush olive green leaves,
coherent chaos awaits.

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.

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.

Together we wrote our stories
Together we sang our songs.
Our hands clenched in each others’
Hoping aging won’t break bond.
Our hands at first were held tight.
As I played in your lap
& you’d shackle away all my fright.
But I aged as everyone aspires to
But not as I coveted to.
Left me scars
Left me nostalgia
Left me threads
Threads that I kept hidden in a place called memories
Memories some I want to hold on forever
Some not so much
Everyone asked me
How I was
What I was
But I didn’t speak the one truth
The truth that’d shackle all the pains
But no one had the power to listen to it.
That’s what I think.
Or perhaps, I’m too frail to speak about it.
Now I’m too huge for the lap.
It feels like my innocence is sapped.
The songs have lost their melody.
The proses have lost their relevance.
But, I still try to make sense.
Sense of the senseless words I write.
But I fear something is going to bite.
Bite me as bad as a bit has been.
I fear I’ll be like Charlie Sheen.
I say people lack the strength to bear the truth.
But am I the one in ruth?
Nostalgia is all I have.
Yet, it still makes me “the bad”.
No one knows about it.
& no one will.
Well, until all recognise the troubles I’ve seen.
I’m not keen.
I’m not seen.
Nostalgia is my only sin.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.”

The day he walked in that door
was the day he was destined to die.
He lay his foot inside the door
and the other one concurrently came out.
He transposed his clothes
but they ceased to cover his body.
The scarlet coat was left hanging
in the closet with his soul.
Indicted with crimes
that he must not have been penalized for.
And bashed by society
with their spiteful words like arrows.
Met his lover
but was parted by the injudicious laws.
Left skint and lacerated
with the epithet of an outcast.
Alien tears fill for him
and outcasts pay their homages.
No statue of air was this man
yet hard labor was all he was given to build it out of stone.
His teacher later delineated him as a blot on their tutorship.
For he was but a tutor.
De Profundis
spoke of his anguished journey.
Victorian times
disagreed with his originality and frolic.
He told
platonic love was all he was guilty of.
Yet,
he was charged with crimes.
Drowned in cries of shame;
and incarcerated to rip him off his passion.
Something was dead in him,
and what was dead was hope.
Hope died first
and then gradually died the passion.
In exile,
his love for writing too deceased.
The daemon inside him
ceased to inspire.
God sent the lord of death
The lord of death
didn’t move around pompously like him.
But came announced,
for it had been accepted.
The wallpaper moaned
upon his untimely death.
For it desired to die
instead of the then mincing man.
He left the earthly plains
for the good have fewer days.
The good die young
as did the revered outcast.
Herodotus the father of history
unerringly expressed the good ones’ misery.
He repudiated to deny his soul
and lived nonchalantly.
He desired all the fruits of the world
so he lived.
Exile ruined him
and rent his ardor.
His meetings with his lover
were interdicted by his family.
He was pardoned
but a century too late.
Along with the outcasts
that lived in throbbing pain.
The outcast deceased when young
but lived indefinitely.
Infinite existence is promised
for the ***** was silver-tongued.
He died young
and roams the immortal planes.
Just like Alan Turing,
Bhagat Singh, JFK, and countless more.
God wanted them
for they wanted to augment their heavens.

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.

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.

Poetry is the subtleties of life.

Poetry is the simplicities of life.

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?

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.

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

In a bus, sat an old couple
and held each other’s hands.
Two hands were clenched together,
as they had when they were just born.

They were at peace with what would arrive,
yet sweaty and energized like they had been
when they played in the green grounds
as little, naive boys.

Six decades of intimacy
running through their minds.
Both chanted and repeated prayers
and wishes for each other and others.

They were mid-desert
but their bond well-irrigated.
Their fields had borne flowers.
And water was plenty.

What had happened was that
a band of robbers had attacked.
They threatened to ****
and so, they did.

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.

When stuck in storms of hail and snow, insist.
If stuck in fights of sticks and stones, forget.
If stuck in dull debate unknown, desist.
When stuck in rain of life and beau, reflect.

But thou cannot be stuck by hail and snow.
Neither involved in fights of sticks and stones.
But thou is not amid rain of life and beau.
Nor thou partakes in dull debate unknown.

Do not give up between the storm of hail.
Do not accept defeat betwixt the rain.
Thou art more strong and does prevail.
Thou can withstand debate and will remain.

Defeat has never ever befallen you.
Dear thou, only victory is true for you.

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.

I’m stuck on the verge
of meandering outside
or wandering inside all the time.

I need to know if the sun shines
and if the moon still glows.
I haven’t seen the stars in a while.
The trees are in disguise,
and leaves don’t fall down by my side.
I haven’t stepped outside.

I need to know if my lungs pump out air
and if my brain still responds to stimuli.
I haven’t visited my heart in a while.
The emotions are in disguise,
and tears don’t fall down my eyes.
I haven’t stepped inside.

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."

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

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.

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.

A frog hops over the rock.
The rock shouts out,
“You’re taking the wrong route.
This isn’t the way to the dock.”

The frog continued to hop,
and croaked-
“You haven’t ever walked,
you’re just a rock.”

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

Sometimes all we have to do is trust each other.

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 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.

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.

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.

We escaped the belly of the beast.
We weathered bludgeonings from across the seas.
we fought them with peace.
Together we wrote our own destiny,
we spelled out words of justice and equality.
We woke to self rule and sovereignty,
pledging to wipe tears from all eyes.
On an unfinished pursuit of our ideals,
our divided wounds continue to heal.
And heal shall they,
for we allow them to with our constitution.
A collection of our most-driven convictions.
We have witnessed wars and decades pass,
the technology grow and freedom last.
Tis nation of the Himalayas and the Malwa.
From the deserts of the west to the deltas of the east,
Liberty has been enshrined
& secularism promised in our revered book.
It is belongs to all of us,
in its mighty self and binding laws.
We, the people have rights that we exercise
and duties we fulfill.
We are not powerless,
we have the power - we are the nation.