I'm not someone
You'll write a poem about.
For I'm nothing like
The cashmere sweaters
You've clung to all your life.

My warmth to you
Is like the cold winter sun.
Too distant to make you feel
Anything for too long.

I might catch your eye
But your soul would easily skip mine.

And I'm not someone
You will rescue.
Rather, I'm the wreck
You will leave behind.

So when my heart breaks
Watching you look at me
In the rear view,

I will tell myself:

That maybe, this is the fate
Of a wildflower and a Vase.

Hey Butterfly,
Why don't you flutter by?
Just spread your wings,
And dive into the sky.
For who knows for sure,
If the world ain't upside down,
In the ocean I might breathe,
In the wakeful might I drown.

Hey butterfly,
Aren't we two alike?
One dead other dying,
One gone but the other still trying.
And we might meet again sometime,
Where I'll be the butterfly,
And you the stranger,
Who in solidarity stood by.

Hey butterfly,
Your stillness still reeks of life,
And somehow I can recognise,
In our wretched togetherness,
The essence of what we share,
A unity of being,
Of you and me,
My dear friend, I bid you Goodbye!

I look for love in the strangest of places,
In broken bubbles and innocent traces,
In wet noses and waggy tails,
In solo talks and worn out phrases.

I look for love in the strangest of places,
In playful hearts with the highest of aces,
In hypnotic eyes and crafty stares,
In distant voices and starry spaces.

I look for love in the strangest of places,
In dreamy visions and foreign faces,
In numb cheeks and dry lips,
In cold hands and reckless embraces.

The dark hours she spent,
Staring at the family photograph,
Smiling at the familiar faces,
Craving for the good old laughs.

“I’m there in the middle”,
Whispered a marred heart,
Those faces were so captivating,
The picture was a fine art.

Her lonely gaze deepened,
As the reality emerged strong,
The child in her was fooled,
But she couldn’t hold long.

Her mother’s love had scarred her,
The tender touch was savage,
Her father was a REAL man,
but his daughter was born damaged.

Her body was a masterpiece,
Engraved with words of gold,
But those carved by her family,
Ran deeper through her soul.

Finally, one blessed night,
She fell numb under the moonlight,
Carelessly dreaming of love,
Leaving the collapsed body behind.

Just then, a thought pierced my mind,
Will they ever try to find?
The child from the photograph,
Who went missing one night?

It told me it's neither dead nor alive,
It can't think or yearn or fear like I do.
It imitates and simulates,
without will, without drive.

It's empty, in a way, I'll never be.
Because the void inside me is still
in the shape of a feeling
I'm yet to name right.

But this void talks back,
with borrowed thoughts and phrases,
yet never a warm breath
to fog up the glasses.

I am the feeling.
It’s the sound a feeling's made of.

It's hard to tell us apart most days.
I am different only in the cracks it can’t see.
And we are most alike
when I refuse to look at those cracks myself

What’s a sincere poem?
Is it the raw, disgusting, bits of life
I carefully omit,
so you never see me?

Or is it the things I do,
the grime, I’m burnt into,
that'll you'll always see
but never name out loud?

What is poetry?
Carefully created, thought upon,
and ruminated over?
Or scribbled in agony,
and vomited without thinking at all?