Adults fight all the time,
like children -
So I should take the charge and grow up already!
How might I do that exactly?
Should I start by sipping a cup o' tea?
Or take a swig from the bottle of whisky?
Grow some hair on my face maybe?

But I still fancy chocolate milk
on the side of animal-shaped biscuits
while I plug my earphones in
to cut out the domestic horror story

Those who tried to claim me
Were unable to tame me
They stopped to blame me
Then started to maim me
Ever caught the wind, have you?

I care not for our defaults
I care not for societal norms
I wouldn't dabble in white lies
But take the bull by its horns
Did I break your rules, too?

A free soul cannot be caged so easily
They say I'm alone, but
I know there are more of me
Our love of freedom unites us
Soul siblings from green Mother Earth
They are too set in their own ways
To observe the world as I do
They desire a mirror, and me a window

A fire in my belly roars
****** cringe for dinner
If I finish
    all the dishes
        am I still a sinner?

Can’t pick your poison
In a usurper’s market
You’re scrolling
    through the trolling
        of the disregarded

Climbing down
from this energy
to make you a final appeal..

Can you hear
the sound of rebellion?
One in a million
Drowning in the distance

Take my hand
before it’s too late to carry on
and we’re off to oblivion
Tonight’s our last dance

                    ...

‘Become anti-fragile!’
The new prophet says
When you type
    ‘wanna die’
        on the internet

Strip till your soul is naked!
Why’s no one listening??
There’s no purpose
    to this service
        that’s on offering

Climbing down
from this energy
to make you a final appeal..

Can you hear
the sound of rebellion?
One in a million
Drowning in the distance

Take my hand
before it’s too late to carry on
and we’re off to oblivion
Tonight’s our last dance

                     ...

                Underneath,
Lost inside a sea of darkness
                   Finally,
I might be seeing a ray of sunshine
             I’m reaching out
   Amidst all the background
                      So..

Burn the book of faces
Hunt the little blue birds
Break the lenses
    of the senseless
        little micro cult

Taste the steel and stone
Past the trigger warnings
Past the snipes
    and the swipes
        of mock-up darlings

Climbing down
from this energy
to make you a final appeal..

Can you hear
the sound of rebellion?
One in a million
Drowning in the distance

Take my hand
before it’s too late to carry on
and we’re off to oblivion
Tonight’s our last dance

Our last chance.

-x-

Put me to sleep
I'm so tired of the day
And so scared of the night
Your thoughts have made my mind
Their playground

Put me to sleep
For when my eyes open
There's you, or the want of you
And the certain reality that our
Roads have un-wound

Put me to sleep
Because I have to see you tomorrow
And pretend to be someone else
And all I wish to say to you
Must be spoken sans sound

Put me to sleep
I hate this reality
I hate this passing time
I hate the thought of the moment that
Will come with despair profound

Put me to sleep
Maybe I'll find you in dreams
Stitched from happy memories
Or scribbled pages, or olden journals
Where my delusions abound

Look, there's a trail of fire
across my gray wall
The scent of honey
within concrete and dust

The minutest of creatures
march on with impeccable conduct

I know today the world celebrates you
But in my heart, your festival plays all season
To craft songs in your praise is honour
And this wordsmith is honorable aplenty

I know I'll never know the pain
The way societies have pushed you when
You blinded them with your radiance
Now enlightened they can only apologise

Justice is the cry!
Tell me it is not my lone heart
I do not strive to appease,
it is just what every woman deserves
Even if I lend my hand to
just the ones close to my heart
They say intelligence comes from one's experience,
and wisdom from those of others'
Wise I have become,
so I pledge to be better than my fathers

You were never
Mine to lose
But I lost you
All the same

Would I craft
A thousand lines
Were it not
In your name?


Time will heal -
So you say
Distance will
**** these feelings

Should I try
And resent you?
I just cannot
Find a reason


Now my weeks
Are bleak
from the drink
And the damnation

Intoxicated
I stumble on
A path of
Self-destruction


A poet's love
Will not be
Extinguished
So easily

Not until
I'm playing
In my own
Greek Tragedy

Leaves shed
as she leaves behind
Those worn old faces and troubled minds
to a distant land
Her brave heart is fuelled by freedom

I walk alone
over graves gold and red
Rustle and crunch! complain the dead
With a grimace,
I bid welcome to my favourite season

The northwest breeze
shares a smoke with me
As I solicit the shade of a leafless tree
The dust gathers
around my feet, around my life uneven

A golden sky
when the red sun sets
A cloud floats by that resembles her face
with the colours
that make Autumn, to me, so appealing

The man
The untidy one
Hunger his mistress
She likes to watch him suffer, lament
Till he drops at the feet of Mother Pavement.

The wife
Fed up by life
For there's nothing else to feed her
There is no lamp in the city
that can lighten up her Diwali

The child
All bone and skin
clutching on to the alphabet
His coos of learning A, B, C
Drowned by the cacophony of G, D, P

There it lay forgotten,
in the shelf gathering dust -
A chapter that had once been opened,
and halfway through shut.

Maybe some day,
in the future near or far
Another may wipe the cover
and with love pick it up

They might turn the pages,
might even read to the end
So don't expect your bookmark
to stay on the same page.

When you tinker with broken glass
You must not complain for getting hurt
For so mercilessly,
so delicately it cuts

At first
Change is strange
But then
Change is good

More often than not,
Some people should

My soul hunts cheap justice
Over the plains of carpeted floors
Beyond the savannah of desk chairs
Away from the huts of curious minds
and the shine of polished nameplates

My eyes seek cheap justice
Looking to the sea of masked faces
A mountain of guilt stands in between
An avalanche of shame crashes down
Forcing me back to my silent retreat

My heart finds cheap justice
in a kind word, or maybe four?
Or in an arm around the shoulder -
Maybe a smile as wide as the Amazon.
Priceless for me, an expense of your gesture.

To judge, to write
to scribble in the daylight
and crumple at midnight
To account for placid instincts
with the strength of an eagle's sight
The blue ink, the golden pen,
and the satchel white
That is all my birth-right

✒️

I would
Gladly open
The windows
Of my heart
But I'm afraid
The weather
Is too cloudy
For your liking

Colour me in your mind
Am I vermillion red
or prussian blue?
Maybe a mix of the two?
Or just a hue
Of simple forest green
No wait, aquamarine
like an underwater scene
Deep and darkness within
Yet maybe you enjoy shades
that are bright
and they look so
under the sunlight
But true colours show
only under the grayest skies
to the most observant eyes

I see letters float before my eyes, form words when I struggle to get them out
Little and a lot, millions of worlds form in my mind
Worlds with knights and dragons, ones with spaceships and lightsabers
And those where a hand reaches out to meet mine

I dare not shut my eyes, even as torpor sets in to counsel
A mosaic of bittersweet memories decorate my delirious porch
Heat courses through my blood, away from my heart
The sweat on my forehead feels like a familiar touch

My fantasies are real as long as I endure this stupor
Imagined reality is what I should live for
Love for
Because there, we're together.

Heart:
Wise one! Hearken to me,
for I need enlightening
-there stands a tree
in a part of me
once where flowers of love blossomed
and sparrows used to sing
to the mornings of eternal spring
Now the flowers have wilted
the birds have flown from their nests
yet the branches continue to grow
and the roots still run deep
I have not the courage
to task myself with its rearing
My memories of springtime
are still fresh, still endearing

Mind:
I'm afraid there is
but one cure for this disease
Along with the soil
that so graciously hosts it,
You must uproot this tree
and spend the rest of your life
as an amputee

Mind:
Why must you always reconcile?
Do you not have a sense of self-respect?

Heart:
You see, wise one,
I used to believe that
I'm not the only one who cared.

Heart:
I have a book of songs,
a collection of antique emotions,
carefully crafted for someone
Like how seedlings germinate
inside the womb of the good green Earth
feeling the warmth of a watchful Sun

Yet I pick up another,
a chronicle sans embellishments,
A tale every bit pure, every bit unspun
A familiar fear grips me -
clouds me, maims me, ****** me
as I open it with glum expectations

But I feel myself break,
to know of my absence from this tome,
with each page I anxiously turn
Did I not deserve
a chapter, a line, atleast a word?
Maybe I will find a footnote - none!

Mind:
Oh my dear heart,
Do not expect in return something better
because you've surrendered to her memories
Equivalence is just, but justice is not a quality

How do you plan to **** the one
whom you've already granted immortality?

Heart:
Look at her
and tell me-
is there anything more beautiful?

Mind:
Maybe a smile
that would have drowned in a sea of tears
but to the surface, managed to paddle through-
A smile without compromise,
that reveals for a moment, all of you

I'm stealing glances,
trying to hide behind
useless conversation

I'm taking my chances,
trying to conceal all my
misappropriations

Am I hurting or am I healing?
I'm not yet sure of what I'm feeling
I just sense your magic run through me
Like a thousand volts of ecstasy

I'm counting the seconds,
trying to delay the
pull-down of the curtains

I look to the heavens,
trying to beseech
the God that never listened

Am I hurting or am I healing?
I'm not yet sure of what I'm feeling
I just sense your abandon stagger me
Like a thousand volts of misery

Oh, you.
when I think of you,
it's as if sparks start flying above my head
when I look at you,
drums of arrhythmia keep beating in my chest

Am I hurting or am I healing?
I'm not yet sure of what I'm feeling..
Am I hurting or am I healing?
I'm not yet sure of what I'm feeling..

A fork
we came across
and you said
this is where
our journey ends
for we must walk our separate ways

Why assume
that I would not
have shattered the Earth
to carve our own road?
Why so callous
in the manner you let me go?

My heart was your dominion,
oh Empress
And I put all my faith in you,
oh Faithless

I do not have hearty anecdotes to share,
for I was never more than garnish on the plate
But do not think that silence is indifference,
It is necessary to keep my anguish contained

Come tomorrow, we will get to see
A new dawn for you, and a new one for me
For better or for worse I know not - I will be
without your jests and laughter for company

I know,
There will be a little less sunshine
O friend, philosopher, and guide
So I'll try my best to force a smile
But this is where we say goodbye.

I shiver
and
I writhe
The temperature
continues
to rise
Pain pushes
tears out
of my eyes
Fever came
to visit me
last night
And She
didn't leave
this time
And I never stopped to wonder why.

Body broken
Paralysed is
the mind
Ears tired
of the
preacher's advice
Eyes crave
a shield from
the sunshine
A hand to
caress beneath
the hairline
A pledge
of healing
from inside
Oh, you fool. You are so naive.


Vanquished by
the collective
apathy of reality
Imprisoned,
I swallow these
chemicals with servility
I shelter them
In the bloodstream
Treat the symptoms
Not the disease
I know
She will return again
someday with a surprise
And even though I am
Terrified
I will just take a pill
and tell Her I am fine.

You were fire
I was ice
You thought
you'd melt me down
Melt I did
Turned to water
and put you out
Till there was nothing left
of both of us but
Smoke and ashes

Secret plots and whispered conversations
They've drawn down their lines in the sand

My limbs and legs dance in painted mirth
For the strings are in their hands

But a part of mine has escaped their eyes
The smouldering flame, the closet arsonist

Parched with a desire, to set the world on fire
Tired and old, tied in a fold, the soul begins to resist

I know,
They'll come with sharpened claws
and hardened steel
But like a snake, I'll escape,
I will shed my skin
I'll crawl through the crevice
that they've never seen
They can't stop me forever
Yes - I'll be free!


The smell of incense and the sound of bells
do not appeal to the senses any longer

For the messengers swoop down like vultures
and I sense I am outnumbered

They're all cut from the same cloth,
Gloating authority and feigning wisdom

Unnecessary absolution awaits in their arms
should the sinner kneel before their Gods

I know,
They'll come with righteous preachment
and medicine
But like a rebel in defiance
I'll bathe in sin
They will pray, say, everyday -
that I am sick
They can't stop me forever
Oh I'll be free!


My pen does not understand the pangs of hunger
It does not feel the need to be polite
It dances to the tune of the chaos in my mind
It moves like a runaway kite

You know,
They want a people of marionettes,
to make promises they never keep
They want to keep us in separate boxes,
So that we may never meet -
They will try to take our languages,
Censor the truths we speak
But they can not stop us forever
This world is ours, and we'll be free.

Just you see.

I walk home under a red sky
back to my dingy apartment
I strip off the garb of the trade
and fall on the inviting single bed
Walls close in, but I'm thankful
for the large window beside my head
To watch the trees
To watch the birds return to their nests

Old coats seem like hanged convicts
From the jagged cupboard hooks
The only thing that is new
is the mountain of books
On my bedside, yet to read
I shall pick one up on the morrow
To feel coin well spent
To feel the surprise - will it be thrill, joy, or sorrow?

I place my blue hardback journal
on a makeshift table of cardboard box
I ensure the fluorescent sleeps
so I do not suffer unexpected knocks
Under a tungsten fire, with royal blue dye
I strike the pages with a fountain pen
To mark the week as done
To breathe back life into the poet again

Time is stagnant
I have tried
pushing all the buttons

It hasn't changed
for all my efforts -
this period tiresome

Gray skies
Not a drop of rain
Not a hint of the sun

This life is
too overwhelming
I'm ready for the next one

Your God, my wishes, never came true
Would He mind, if instead, I prayed to you?

The heart failed to reason, so the mind has to.

Love is a phenomenon
Not dissimilar to gravity
Like an ignoramus
The stoic heart denies it

Until it falls.

Furnished rooms, refined cooling
An angry Sun, a helpless ozone layer
Lavish resorts, palatial homes
The Ents are silent in their prayers
Roaring turbines, whirring motors
****** waters, crying to be set free
Clicks and clacks, a touch and a swipe
Birds fall to the alien magnetic field
Travel the world, not fast enough
Dig and mine, crashing harbour wave
Fossils spent, air wears the smoke
Dinner is served on the tectonic plates

Every day the water becomes a little fuller to the brim
Every day the air becomes a little less thin
Every day the world becomes a little too big
Every day the land becomes a little less green

I say,
if you have hate in your gut
Set it free
Make me the outlet
for I have the depths
of the sea
And the little drops
of venom
won't matter to me

I'm not heartless
Just choose when to
use my heart less

Her hair is fire
Her face the summer sun

Warmth to the world
But scalding to one

Her eyes are ebony
With a seldom shine

That awaken tremors in
Fragile heart of mine


On the bridge between
Fantasy and reality

My thoughts shape
Hope and sanctuary

I gaze down at
The chasm underneath

Hoping to escape
Wishful thinking


On one end
A faint shadow stands

On the other
An absurd fairyland

Edicts of silence
Echo through my spine

What am I waiting for?
Maybe her voice divine..

What is home?
Welcome steps?
Mother's love?
Father's hate?

What is home?
Is it even a place?
Is it like Heaven?
Or is it another Hell?

What is home?
Is it a someone
who believes in you
when others say you're done?

What is home?
Is it a thought
that shelters your memories
when you're distraught?

What is home?
Is it the place
I'm searching for
or the one that I left?

It is a respite
to forget for a while
that the number of candles grow
and birthday cakes shrink in size
gradually, each time

Curse this dream!
The doors kept on shaking
And all my strength was not enough
against His brute ferocity
But alas! Not enough to wake me

Must I live in bed
these moments of her death?
When indeed He comes for her,
I wish I can broker a trade -
to take me instead

Sigh..
If only I could stop Time.

Do not tell me
It is not love
That fills me with joy -
The sight of
Your lips
Pulling at the corners
When you break into
A smile
Even if
I am burnt out
From inside

Do not tell me
It is not love
That raises my heartbeat -
The tension
In my nerves
When your
Eyes shine
Moist and sad
Too short to notice
Yet still I do
The narrowest span

Do not tell me
It is not love
That soothes my mind -
The sound
Of your voice
A symphony
Of fresh notes,
gentle chimes
The wind bears
Them once
I perceive them thrice

A fool undoubtedly, but one out of his time
Ancient are my thoughts, yet present is my crime
If this isn't love, I don't know what is
If this isn't love, then educate me

Now that
I have
learnt my place
It is time
To teach
Them theirs

I wonder
If I ever come as
An unannounced guest
In your mind
Because you stay in mine
Always welcome
All the time

I wonder
If you're unimpressed
By the cover; I urge you
To take a peek within
You'll never know the narrative
If you've made your mind
Before you begin

I wonder
What felt sadder
To have your heart broken
Or shattering mine?
I thought I was the victim
But maybe falling in love
Is the crime

I wonder
If both of us are broken
Why not trade each other
Pieces of our souls
See if we can find
Edges that fit and
Close these gaping holes

I wonder
If we had more time
Would it be any different
Than how it is today?
Would you find me worthy?
Or would you still
Push me away?

Time is money
And all my money is spent
On the letters I typed in
and pressed delete instead of send

Wasted my recesses
on machine made black coffee,
That was as devoid of sweetness
as the empty chair opposite me

All those hours
of thinking may have been in vain
For now I crave just a minute
to gaze upon your face again

आपको भुला पाने का इल्म हासिल हो जिससे
काश हमारे पास कोई ऐसी किताब होती
आपका नशा जो चढ़ा है, उसे भी फीका कर दे
काश हमारे पास कोई ऐसी शराब होती

आवाज़ आपकी जिससे टकराके ना गूंजे
काश हमारा दिल कोई ऐसा पहाड़ होता
के कातिल यादों से दिल को महफूज़ कर पाऊं
काश हमारे पास कोई ऐसा हथियार होता