Consistant honesty,
something I lacked
when I was a younger me.
But now I find it hard
to bite my tongue,
so eager to roll out
a frank wound or
two.
Or blow out a cloud of,
"I don't agree."
I have to stand up for me.
If that nonstop candor
is really what you
crave,
then come back and
let me drool out
consistant honesty.

A paint bucket filled to the brim with blue
Sitting on top of a ladder
Right before the earthquake

I don't know quite when
but one day the world will end
will you join me then?

Your sleeve gently brushes mine
we are in a crowd-
a train station, I believe.

Our eyes both shoot upward,
to the face of the passerby we happened to interact with,
and it is then that I feel a deep sensation
like the tide rushing up on the shore of my heart.

Everything falls silent,
and then that phrase plays in my head.
Words so tenderly sung with bitter intentions,
"do you feel?"

For the first time,
yes,
I felt.
I felt more than I could ever imagine feeling.
Every secret of the world entered my mind,
and every feeling I had felt flooded down my face through tears.

"Do you feel?"



"More than ever before."

If the seed
was replanted in
the wrinkles
of these aged brains
would it grow into
a garden?

underneath this quite white sheet
a ghost
pretends to be
a person
with a heartbeat, a life breath
a claim at an elusive mortality
a spirit in denial of
its drained vitality
haunting unknowingly
striking fear
even as it tries to silence
the clanging chains of
its past
monsterized
it has no other identity

- Vijayalakshmi Harish
  10.02.2013
Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish