I may not be able to
Shape you into a poem today,
Though you've been calling out to me
From quite some time now,
Know that I'm keeping you safe
Inside my heart,
Where all my emotions rest,
Where all my peace and turmoil conjoins
and fills up my being, makes me real,
I'm going to keep you there,
Dear idea, bask in my happiness,
Feel my pain, the knots of my confusions,
The force of my convictions,
The pangs of my regrets,

And wait for me,
For, when the time is right,
I'll reveal you to the world,
In all your wisdom and beauty,
Wait for me, my love.

Until I'm able to put you into words,
Feel at home inside my soul.

You are the ending
to my wandering
Poem

Hey, I think we should stop right now
Wasting precious hours
Building these sturdy
Pedestals for each other
Let's remain in the dirt instead,
Ankle-deep, slipping, falling,
Giving in to the wind, carelessly
Letting our bodies sway
I have a feeling
Life'll be more fun that way

Heartbeat aflutter,
Rhythms skip and stutter,
Slip as if on butter,
It's the end of those days forlorn,
the heart sounds in triumph,
*Crush Alert- ON!

I watch him move as if in a trance,
Engrossed in another world,
In moments like this I
Don't dare disturb
Him out of his spiritual reverie,
His hands doused in color,
Working on the canvas in a rapturing frenzy.

He is a spectacle,
The creator of perfection.
He knows just the right shade
To bring to life his vision,
He knows...
He knows it all,
Mingling fine detail with vague mystery,
Crafting beauty that enthralls.

While I...
I fumble and struggle,
To pick the right words,
To describe him,
My fixation, obsession,
My muse, my craft,
As if he reduces all my poetic prowess
To a bundle of nervous childish follies,
He, the master of his art towers over-
Me, merely a humble slave of his fancies.

Cities aren't cities,
The people are the cities,
she'd say, and I didn't understand
what she meant until I realised

That Hauz Khas was our first stroll ever,
Khan Market- our best cup of coffee,
Humayun Tomb- our first stolen kiss,
Dilli Haat- our first quarrel,
The Lodhi Gardens- our biggest quarrel!
The Jama Masjid was where we'd always make up.

Now I know which market sells her favourite
bags, which gully keeps the anklets
she loves most, which discrete stall in the
by-lanes of Old Delhi is her best chaat-wallah ever,
Every nook, I know by the fragrance of her memory,
I try forget, I try erase,
But oh, I remember,
For she is my Delhi

Delhi is her, only her,
The city of first love, first dreams,
a million rights, a devastating wrong,
The city that now stings with the thorns
That make my feet bleed when I try to enter,
Even with my back turned,
The city hurls
Stones at my fragile heart and screams at me
to never return.
*I'll never return.

Why do you worry?
You are the muse, while I-
merely the flame,
that he'll use to light the dark
as he sculpts your frame,
and then extinguish with ease,
while chanting your eternal name.

There's so much you hide
Behind that opaque mask
But for the sake of love, dear,
I do not ask.

Hectic, stormy, electric,
Piercing my insides like the
shriek of the fever-bird,
Fire, fire, fire within my being,
Melting my words,
Evaporating my thoughts
Into crazy whirlwinds,
Blurring lines, haze dissolving
the boundaries between
Sanity |  Sin,
Right and wrong,
Real and fantasy,
Mixing into a song,
Feverish, mad song
That longs, so urgently longs
To belong, to eternally belong,
To you-
The sole elixir, the only remedy
For my frenzied malady.

The thrill is palpable,
Pulsating, powerful,
Electric,
Fierce heat it emanates,
Warming our faces,
We are radiant, we glow,
We both feel it,
We both know,
But none of us
is brave enough
to reach out right now,
so we just breathe with bated desire
and watch the lush fire,
crackle, hiss, seductively bloom,
one impatiently waiting for the other
to make the *first move

I know it's not my responsibility
To fix him
But when I see him,
I see pieces separated with
Spaces of pain in between
Fuelling this urge in me
To seal them with caresses,
To heal them with kisses,
To re-write the tragic tale
That plays out in his eyes
Into a poem that sets into
Rhythm, his disarrayed life

I hate using fullstops in my poems.

I want you to smoothly glide
Line to line,
Perhaps let a comma guide
You here and there
But no stops,
Just inhalations,
Imbibation
Of free flowing sentences
That carry you comfortably afloat,
To the fluid denouement
Of the poem I wrote

He used a nice word for it-
Emulate
"Oh! Look how her imagination glides
From glorious skies to
Eerie depths, no hesitation
Dropping from resounding thunder
To dead silence that shatters asunder
All that is sensate
And that, my friend,
Is what I'm trying to emulate!"

With such shameless eagerness
He shifted styles,
A form-changing, chameleon of a poet
Ever so often devouring a new set of words
Like rich, delicious wine
And fashioning his words into
The poetess' writing style,
And crooning with her tunes
For as long or short a while
As his lecherous dog of a heart pleased,
Then letting himself be afflicted
With yet another poetic disease.

I rolled my eyes, yet silently asked
Him- the Casanova of verse-
*When will you stop falling in love?
When will you stop drowning into
Another woman's words?
Think about me,
Struggling to keep up,
Changing tracks with you,
Climbing up and down
Ballads-Sonnets-Haikus-Epics-and free verse
With you,
Watching you enamoured by her,
Still trying to emulate you
For the most vain of reasons there is-
Hope.

Untamed!*
Its landlocked audacity!
My arrogant city
Needs a sea.

That sight of the scars
Painting her young wrists
Shook me with with disbelief
Yet overtook me with jealousy

I'd never be able to express pain
Like she did in her poetry

The crispest of papers
The finest of inks would falter
In front of that beautiful, mangled mess
Her smudged, blood-tinged words would author

As if in mild amusement at the way
I undermine myself and let my flaws
Cast shadows over my worth,
My neurons light up and give birth
To electricity that sprints through,
Weaving ideas, creating magic,
Shaking me up and lifting me high,
Bringing me face to face, eye to eye,
With the beautiful truth which sets me apart-
That my body is the house of art.

Cornered by two-faced,
Three-faced, uncountable-faced,
No-faced monsters-
The so-called confidantes,
Well-wishers and friends,
Who deep down are back-stabbing fiends-
I put up a brave face,
And try to take them on,
With a true face, my only face.
I will hold my own

Oh what a wonderful phase
We are in right now, us five girlfriends,
With defunct love lives and no immediate hope
of securing a boyfriend.

Oh what freedom there is, in
branding ourselves "unaffordable platinums",
And priding ourselves at being too good for
those mortal, fallible, self-proclaimed "alpha" men.

Such hypocrites we are, actually,
Ridiculing and belittling that cute guy,
Still discussing his every move, nudging
and giggling at each other when he passes by.

But hey, call us hypocrites, evil, mean-
All of it we whole-heartedly accept.
Right now, we're living life in moments,
And our bucket list of madness, we mean to "check"-

Aimless flirting - check!
Pointless bedtime discussions - check!
Choosing a guy and then dissecting
His every habit - check,
His dressing style- check,
His twinkling eyes- check,
That had met ours today over lunch break- YES! Check!,
His last aloof message- check,
Sending an even more curt response- check,
Our hidden hopes that he would reply,
With affectionate words and also apologize,
For all the times he wasn't all that nice- wistful check.

Oh we're a bundle of emotions, us five,
Sans pressures and restrictions that a guy brings along,
Sans complexities and compulsions that come free
With his supplies of testosterone.

So, broadcasting this to all you gentlemen out there,
If you ever venture into our line of sight,
Prepare to be scrutinised, evaluated, and then rejected outright,
By this precious, exuberant pack of platinum five.

Morning commences with the friendly clink of
cups, sitting beside the tea cosy-clad kettle,
Fresh, calming fragrance of warm tea nudging at
My just-awakened senses, a little unsettled,

My favorite ghazal colors the background,
The record though scratchy, its influence unfaded;
Abida Khanum mellowly croons, urging her lover
to not insist on leaving that day.

I smell, instinctively, the red rose he hands me,
The same rose had traced my skin in the dark
The missing petals testimony to its journey
Over troughs and crests, marks and landmarks.

What is so utterly, heartwarmingly romantic
about something as simple as him spreading
butter on bread, mixing sugar in chai,
what makes his 'routine', for me so endearing?

He watches me eat, breaks into a smile so wide,
'How do you enchant me, even with the mundane?'
he asks, same question amusing us both,
Same passion coursing through our veins.

The poetess inside me, happily chuckles,
Of being the one expressive, of solely giving away-
Are the days of the past, as breakfast in bed
Becomes our way of Give and Take

Resilience
Temptation
Resistance
More resistance!
Desire...
Powering,
Overpowering,
Unbearably overpowering,
Feeble opposition,
Finally, resignation,
And after this,
Sweet, chocolatey bliss.

*Impossible it is,
To watch your weight
Sitting at a table with
Friends who live to eat!

12 am
Choose a profound song,
Play it on repeat,
Study feverishly while the song plays.
Go away, Sleep!

2 am
Let the song still play on,
Guiding your thoughts to the very deep,
Telling your heart that the night's
Too young still, to sleep.

4 am
The loop is never-ending,
Mind numbed by racing at top speed,
Yet thoughts and memories charge on,
Musically gnawing away your sleep

The birds have awoken now**
Nothing feels real anymore,
Life/love/promises-you want none to keep,
As soon as you "Stop" the haunting music,
Realising again tonight, that all that matters, actually,
Is a beautiful Sleep.

I don't tell Ma when
I put on this gooey, yellow,
Besan-turmeric face pack.
Too embarrassing to let her know
That her daughter finally bothers
About those useless things
Like oily skin,
Like ****** glow.

Then there are days
When with a sulking face
I go through everyone's poems
Including my own
And wonder with bitter scorn
What kick do these people get
From all this rhyme-rhyme business
Just say it all in one line, no
Why coat it with metaphorical prettiness

Don't worry friends,
I hope to self-heal out of this strange daze
Probably just going through
A grumpy phase.

Why is it so hard to find my voice
In the cacophony of large gatherings,
Yet so easy to draw on paper, words
Silently arrayed into profound meaning?

I’ll take you on a journey,
Holding you by your hand,
I’m the first girl to hold it, right?
I’ll grasp your trembling fingers tight
And lead you into the unknown,
Whispering in your ear words
That you’d only fantasized about.
You’ll whisper back, that without
Me you can’t imagine living anymore,
And I’ll carefully twist my words,
So you won’t notice that I didn’t assure
You with the promise of being by your side forever.
Together we’ll walk towards that black hole,
Whose door I’ll have decorated with color,
And you, unsuspecting, will lean on me,
Will smile at me, will thank God you found me.
A minute more of contentment I’ll give you,
But that’ll be it.
And before you’ll even realize, I’ll push you in.
You’ll turn around.
You’ll be all alone.
Surrounded by pitch dark silence.
Trapped in the emptiness of betrayal.
Caged in your thoughts and second thoughts.
Entangled in the web of self-doubt.
Tossing and turning and hitting invisible walls.
No one to answer your cries and calls.
Kneeling on the abyss, filled only with anger
For the girl who pushed you into black infinity,
You’ll lie in there, helpless, still unsure
Whether you hate me, or you love me.
(Or do both).
While I’ll be gone, ****!
And my world is soundproof.
So, oblivious to your travails,
I’ll sit comfortably,
And will flip through the pages of my diary,
That records names of all those who had before you,
Fallen in the very same manner, for me.
And I’ll pen your name down, another one in the list.
Then I’ll think of that girl in my school bus
who’d once mocked me-
“No one will ever say I Love You to you”.
I’ll scoff at that decade-old memory,
Setting out on the search for a new casualty.

The fortress is soundproof no more,
And the voices I had once blocked out,
Are creeping in, seeping in, towering over me,
They accuse me, they shout.

Peaceful silence marred by vengeful shrieks,
Blissful ignorance quelled by demanding questions,
Pristine air darkened by black tears,
And surrounded by all, I stand in the centre.

A spotlight of love-turned-ugly encircles me,
And for the first time, I feel insecure, alone.
I take my hand and place it on my chest,
Trying to feel, in vain, my heart of stone.

Silent  heart.
Pulselessness.
Vacant chest.
Airlessness.

Such a curse- this emotionless machine
that swells up on others’ despair!
The robotic pump that never breaks down,
That’s never needed any healing or repair.

I hear the frantic beats of all the hearts
I stomped upon, nonchalantly broke.
Then, smothered by the darkness of my own being,
I gasp and wheeze, I choke.

When will my veins distend with passion?
When will my heart spout unhindered blood,
And add into my lifeless existence-
Fire and pleasure, pain and love?

I’ll unlock now, these strong iron gates,
And stand outside into the hot, harsh light,
I’ve been huddled up in the dark all my life,
I’ll expose my soul now, to set my wrongs right.

And for the one-
Who’ll unfold, unfurl, enter, penetrate,
And my stony abrasiveness, slowly grate-
I’ll tear open my chest, and silently wait.

My heart,
Is a jigsaw puzzle composed of
Pieces of souvenirs from wherever
Life has taken me

Sunny mounts of happiness,
Dark troughs of gloom,
Blind alleys of secret memories

Punched out remains
Of the parts that I gifted to
Those special few

Uneven buds added on
To the surface, because some gave me
Pieces of their hearts too

Marks of where it was trodden on,
Scars that show its
Brave, healed face

With pins of guilt and remorse
Studding it in memory of how
It also became the cause of others' pain

That's my heart. Not so pretty,
Not perfect, not pure,
Yet it sits in my chest, beating away
Patiently, as if entirely sure
That any moment, its wait will end
Of someone who'll admiringly
Imbibe all of its stories,
Ease away all the tense knots,
View in awe all its glories

And let its inadequacies depart,
Completing them with closeness-
Smoothening their unevenness-
By merging with them,
Heart to heart

-Hello Mr. Blue!
How are you?
-I am fine,
And what about you?

Each time I say it,
She brushes off my seriousness
With a careless laugh,
But I swear her body
Emanates this enchanting waft
That comes from no other.
It's exclusive, it's divine,
The language of her apocrines,
That's mine,
Just mine to understand.
And if I could, I'd take all that fragrance
In my bare hands,
And securely I'd preserve it,
Immortalizing in my possession,
Her- in all her glory
Her- in all her heat.

In hands hardened with
Hunger, struggle, and poverty
Of all kinds,
She clutched bundles of
Fragrant, delicate roses,
Her beauty hidden behind
A torn dupatta,
The light turned from yellow to red
The other girls by her side rushed
To crowd around cars
While she simply sat unmoving
Face turned away
While I wished I could take a picture,
Because her silent figure needed

Something more than words,
Something deeper, more colorful
Than words
To illustrate her black and white story

Her mighty pen glides
Enveloping in hot flames
Of words, this cold world.

Tired feet stumble back
Tingling through and through,
Legs so numb, sleepily complain
Of all the running they had to do.

Thirty hours of relentless work,
And only stolen moments of rest later,
The calf muscles I pampered all my life
Cringe and cramp and labour.

Oh my fatigue is palpable,
I can feel it in my heels
In the weariness of my soles
And my jaded tendons of Achilles.

The first respite swiftly comes
When my skin finally recognises
My soft, familiar slippers,
I sink into the feeling and I like it!

Then comes another wave of relief,
Gently easing those knots away,
When my pajamas caress my legs,
Draining out the pain of the long, long day.

I dive into bed, and sleepily wait
For my final portion of cosiness
Which comes when sleep lulls me to bliss.
Indeed, home is where the feet are happiest.

Exam time,
Stupid exam time
Think you're so formidable, do you?
Well I'm about to erase that
Leer off of that ugly face,
I'm going to grab you with
These hands covered in
Tired ink stains,
And mercilessly squeeze you
And extracting a handful words out,
I'll create a Poem out of you.
Oh, how much you'd hate that, right?
But yeah, that's what I'm going to do.

I wonder if the universe listened
To the song of an aching voice,
If a weak heart wrapped in pain
Reached out to its imposing poise.

If it did, oh how I'd beg and plead
for it to tell its stars to re-align
To where I'd left my fairy tale unfinished,
And take me back to those simpler times.

Too many sunny gardens lie unexplored
Too many poems stay unwritten
Too many knots remain tangled as
The fog of Delhi looms menacing,
Inside the stillness of a seven-year void
That only you can bring light in,
If only you'd meet.

You'd find the curtains lightly dancing
to the tune of that song,
to which we'd bashfully waltzed
the first time you had held me,
You'd smell the musk
Spreading its wings in the air,
That you once said, drove you
dizzy when you were around me,
You'd find poetry singing softly
Behind the veil of silence,
Reading aloud my verses of love,
Calligraphed on the bare canvas
Of my skin, in Urdu,
Curving and turning shyly,
For you to trace with gentle fingers,
Right to left, misra to misra,
Sher to sher,
The beher of each caress
Matching the stirring of my breaths,
Culminating at its pinnacle,
Into a ghazal, your ghazal,
That would, with demure grace,
Take form and calmly embrace,
The raging fire, the desperate uproar
Lashing at my parched, starved soul.

This morning when I woke up
I realised something really sad
Don't ask what it is
That doesnt matter,
Basically I did something
But I didn't do it right
There wasn't much to lose
But that's not the point
For here I had a chance
And I casually gave it away,
And three months later suddenly
In my bed as I lay,
I awakened to the reality of how
Downright stupid I was.
Lying in bed for the past two hours now
Desperately counseling, consoling myself,
Looking for some closure,
Now trying to find a remedy on this page
Hoping as the words are vented out
Comfort will slowly get space to seep in,
And I'll be able to start with this already delayed day,
Because right now I just want to forever sleep in.

In a land where the sun will shine
Softly on our bare skins,
The cool, calm water will flow over
Our feet dipped in-
Sparkling, soothing, tickling,
While we’ll both lazily lie,
Arms spread out, time stretched out,
Truths and worries left behind,
Where the only possible distraction
From each other’s sight could be
That of a butterfly fluttering by,
We'll track, over lilacs and yellows, its flight,
Then suddenly we’ll catch each other’s eyes,
And once again forget the presence of all life,
Just soaking in the profoundness,
Of being side by side.
And my fingers, freed from
All shackles of wrong and right,
Will slowly move over soft, wet grass,
Eliminating whatever distance before us lies,
I’ll touch for a moment, your fingertips,
And I’ll test you, wait for your reaction,
I’ll see it on your smiling lips,
And at last with your heavenly fingers,
Mine will entwine,
To finally fill that love-shaped void in our hearts,
For the union of our souls to never grow apart.

Wait for me in that land, my dear,
Wait for me; I’ll meet you there.

But how can I forget you,
I met you at an age when
Everything seemed possible,
There was time left for everything,
When my mind body heart and soul
Were blank pages open to all colors,
When I stayed up half night to catch
That song on the radio which reminded me of you
I met you at the age when the touch
Of your name written on my hand
Gave me butterflies,
You became all my love songs
You became all my poetry
You became all my innocence,
My optimism, my naivete, my hope,
You were my year seventeeth,
And even on my thirty-seventh,
Fifty-seventh, seventy-seventh,
You will forever be my year seventeenth,
So how can i forget you?

We would mark our places-

Our flower shop,
Our cheesecake,
Our café,
Our frozen yogurt,
Our secret spot,

We would, without a thought,
Childishly decorate,
Build landmarks; but now
When it's time to separate,

I realize, as we stare
Ruefully at one another,
That we marked not only places,
But ended up coloring each other-

~ Irreversibly ~

I am the star of small groups,
Intimate meetings, close friends,
Personal conversations,
Old, private jokes- they are my thing,
Talking to someone i barely know
Seated at a far corner of a noisy table,
Is something I just can't do,
A "remember when..." gets more out of me
Than a "what's up",
So, in a crowd, I may be the "quiet" type,
But at a table of four, I am full of life,
I can become the life of that table,
I'm that type,
The in/ex-trovert,
That's me, what about you?

Kneeling, I cower
Seeing my merciless Lord
Looking down on me.

I sit, still surprised
At witnessing His greatness,
Oh so fortunate,

To be permitted
In the sanctum sanctorum
of His holiness.

My lips are eager,
But cautiously, taking in
The scent of His feet,

They plant tenderly,
On His wrinkled skin kisses,
Kisses more and more.

Losing my own self,
Forgetting the universe,
Immersed in worship,

My hands in fondness,
Move up His body of stone,
Wishing to please Him.

All fervent prayers
Are at last answered, when my
Deity shudders,

As my tongue reaches
The root of that blessed fountain
Which seeds all of life.

Gentle breeze
Tickles my toes
Rocks me softly
Back and forth
On the swing,
Arms wide open
Legs outstretched
But not quite touching the Fore.
Head propped backwards
But not quite returning to the Before.
Eyes with comfort
Fluttering, closed
Simply suspended.
The Present, the Now,
Illuminating my very core.

Like you pour into the hilly forest bed,
O Mighty Goddess of Rains
Choose me too, to cultivate,
I am but a stretch of pining land,
Thirsting, fertile, lost in the wait
Of your love that nurtures and creates,
With the gentless of water,
And the ferocity of thunder,
I spread myself bashfully to welcome you inside,
Like the mountains beckon you with valleys open wide,
Come, teem into my soil with your potent spell,
Hug my skin and print me with that post-union smell,
And let life take birth from my yearning soul,
Only you hold the power to make me whole.

Hey!
Listen. Listen you!
I wanted to say-
Yes of course I'm talking to you,
So I was saying-
Don't get me wrong
But when you'd so nonchalantly
Placed your fingers on my shoulder
And had tapped lightly
To say "excuse me",
I'd made an irritated face
But just when I was about to make way,
Then-momentarily-
Oh for a fleeting second it must have been-
My eyes had met your eyes,
And though they were shielded by your thin-rimmed spectacles,
I swear,  I could see them beautifully shine.
And the dark black of your hair,
Black salted with those stray strands of white-
Those young white strands-
I hadn't meant to stare-
But they looked so beautiful,
Messed up, mixed up,
It was almost involuntary,
Some sort of magic, believe me!
I know I'd looked for a little bit longer
Than would be considered appropriate
But I'd just got busy following your lips
As they'd curved and took the form of something
That looked like a crooked, confused smile
And I'd kept looking until I'd realized
That it was just your way of politely inquiring
About why I was staring.

That time I'd gone red and had
Averted my gaze
But here I am, I followed you,
Yes I did, I just had catch up with you
Because I had to tell you
That even though we'd met for a moment
Something unprecedented happened.
Nothing major-
And I don't know how but
This heart of mine-
It's really, really so rogue, I agree-
Yes so my heart somehow,
Got entangled into
The awkwardness, the oddness, the beauty
Of that little encounter of ours,
And like it never was mine,
It tore away from me,
And it stubbornly says
That what it wants is shelter inside your chest,
So it can stay near your heart,
And beat along with it.
Funny it is, but what can be done?
Yes, so, hear me out carefully,
I am about to say it finally-
That now that my heart has decided
That what it wants
Is to be yours,
And only yours,
Could you play along with it for now?
Could you, perhaps, let my heart,
Beat with yours, for
Just some time?
I'll try to dissuade it later on,
But right now, this is just what it wants!
I would've ignored it but it wouldn't listen to me
You know how adamant
These hearts can be!
So, tell me, what do you feel
About this proposal of mine,
Would you like to accept it?
All my heart wants is a home near yours.
Please, oh please,
Do keep it.
:)

Silently she prowls,
Inhaling whiffs of his scent,
That inflames her through and through,
Igniting her every sense.
She circles outside his vision,
Sizing him up, drinking in
the rawness of his manliness
Watching him make his ****,
Wouldn't he like to see my skills?
she thinks to herself,
claws ready to pierce into his skin,
to mark his body as hers,
only hers,
she proceeds towards him,
concealing all her fire, all her madness,
beneath smooth, unruffled fur.
He harshly growls,
turning ferociously towards her,
And she,
demurely *purrs

Our fingertips touch and the world
Comes to a standstill-

Still as all of nature at dusk,
Silent as the moonlight on a starless night,
Heavy as the gurgling clouds just before it rains,
Blinding as the sun in all its glory and light

Our fingers begin a rhythmic dance,
As if playing the piano, rendering a favorite song,
Knowing the pace, the moves by heart,
Not faltering once, not going wrong,

Then twined together, we blissfully lay,
Content, peaceful, complete.
The moment of oneness cupped between our hands
preserved for all of eternity.

It's when you understand that-

                    Everyone has a battle to fight
                    Everyone has a demon to ****,
                    A regret they pray disappeared,
                    An unanswered "what if?..."
                    A larger than life aspiration
                    An urge for a simpler life
                    (both at the same time),
                    Everyone sees in themselves
                    A flaw they spend all their might to hide,
                    Everyone has an ache untreated,
                    Insecurities kept discreetly in a shell.
                    Everyone has a Story to tell-

Do you begin to realise that
Probably all of humanity
Is just the many versions of
One inifinitely re-written story.

Popping out from slumberous state,
Little buds, you come to life.
Fight, fist, fend the odds,
You’re different; you survive.

Combative, commanding, cruel,
Your army, every restraint exceeds,
As it marches on, devouring
The very platter on which it feeds.

Slithering, slipping stealthily,
Deadly tentacles spare no bone, sinew.
Boundaries are blurred; your territory expands,
Your militia continues to exponentially grow.

And soon, your red flags of victory-
Those flags of death, demise and doom
Are planted everywhere; each bit
Of terrain you’ve invaded and consumed.

There you sit, content, in the middle of all the gloom,
Immortal, indestructible, infinite.
With power of the magnitude you possess,
There’s no force that can give you a fight.

And when flies of decay begin to hover over
Your kingdom, you smile, flexing your pincers.
Thriving on the depressing glow of the setting sun,
You- the kark, the crab, the cancer.

*(to the malady that ate my Grandmother away)