Pompous poetaster,
Tireless self promoter,
Wannabe artist.

They* wonder why I am
so safe around them,
but willing around *you.
I realized I feel safer,
and happier too,
with  you.
It lets me wander,
and be out of the blue,
feeling safer
here and there with you.

Remember the staring?
Tense, but not unpleasant.
Remember the silence?
awkward, and shy.
Remember the laughing?
bubbly, and surprised.
Remember the shock?
at our growing relation.
I do.
Almost perfectly
As perfectly as we were
*so really not at all.

She said she loved him,
He heard words burn into stone,
Now temple ruins.

Could someone point the way
to salvation please or even
just a full night's sleep,
without being bone-tired?
Kind people, could you
please tell me
a way to feel again?
If not, could you just
tell me how to trust again?

You see, as of now,
I'm in this ugly space where nothing is
non-existent and something is just a warning
that I am going to be doing something
irredeemably dumb.

Did you hear, kind madam, that yesterday
a girl, barely four months old,
was killed because she was lesser?
Did you know that her older brother
burnt her hand intentionally, and her
father only laughed? Her mother
killed herself, you know.

Rumours say, her mother-in-law hated her
and after the girl was born, she only hated
the woman more. The father, as rumours go,
made her sleep on the floor in the kitchen,
after she birthed a female. The mother hated
the girl so much, but she knew the greatest
punishment would be to make the little girl
live out her life with her father and brother.

The mother couldn't tolerate looking after the
little girl any more, they whisper, let alone,
look at her every day to see a sign of her failure

The police verified the woman died due to rat poison.
Whether she drank freely or due to someone else's
Persuasion and other such insignificant details have
been carefully lost and burnt. The little girl, with no
One to look after her, died. Markings that suspiciously
looked like hands were found around her neck.  
They covered it with a dear little scarf and ignored it.

I notice you the moment I walk in
You, however, don't give a ****
Looking at your pretty little associates
Giggling over some inane matter
While you sit like you are
Some kind of holy,
With a ****-eating grin
On your face. Your attention
Doesn't waver from them

I walk inside, intensely tired
Gone insane with all the fake-
grins and the somewhat awkward
Fun we all had. Your attention
Doesn't waver from your papers
Your precious little papers
I note, with a sardonic grin
I close my eyes and simply
Don't care any more as I
Strip out of my clothes
Chuck off my stupid heels
And fall on the bed, letting
Out a sigh of relief, comfort
Finally, I get to relax
My spine relaxes but it tingles
With awareness of the
Audience. I open my eyes
My vision blurry from over-use
I meet his gaze across the room

He keeps staring
Disconcerted and too weary to deal
With his mood-swings, I close my eyes
And bury my face in the pillow

My head is hurting, it is pounding
And I am at the end of my rope
He comes with slow, languid strides
Makes me sit-up, hands over the flask
Filled with water, my name engraved
On the cap, and a pamphlet of Aspirin
I praise the medical wonders
As I knock it down and lie on the bed again
I can feel it acting its magic
My nerves are loosening out
My head is being quietened bit by bit

As my vision blackens, I notice his
Face, eyes, expression
Strangely, something looks
Like longing on his face

I skip rope with mortality
We play hide and seek at least once a week
My favorite hiding spot is the bottom of a pill bottle
Or a carbon monoxide quartet played in b minor
Though She always finds me
I’m chastised for being weak
I always say She because She has me intrigued
But who is She to deny me the ease of eternal sleep
When in time I’ll see for myself that it’s a corrupted dream

In the sun I bloom in thralls of ecstasy
And a splendor unseen unless your eyes are on the childish setting
In this light I toil over a slowly rusting slinky
I marvel at its ebb and flow
Unbeknownst to its proper meaning
On the box reads “Life and Death” but to this it has no means to me
But the sun doesn’t shine forever
And soon its warmth will leave me to wither
Then that rusting slinky takes hold of me
Extreme with avarice so bitter
And no thoughts of ever leaving
To combat this I reach into my box of cigarette kisses
To extract a couple of sweetlings
A long draw of articulate death
While I listen to the tobacco weeping
Their cries against a moonlit sky
Marks the stay of a frivolous execution
Though I am not without disillusion
I can feel it in every breath
Just as a child believes they’ll always be free
I’ve acquiesced to a not so slow, slow death