i. The world is burning.
A little above the place that
Seeks the greatest blessing of the sun,
It is burning with grenades and bombs
Flying around like table tennis *****
With children sleeping to the lullaby
Of their parents'cries.

ii. The world is burning.
A little far away from my house
Around the nook of the street
A group of humans are fighting
They're burning and getting burnt
The fire consumes their body
And the ego their soul.

iii. So when I asked mom to
Go to that nook that reeks of fire crackers
To buy the ice cream blue lagoon,
She kept staring at me
The way she would whenever I'd ask for too much.
I showed her the red colour thread that she had forcefully tied around my neck
Because she had said that it would protect me all the time
I kept waiting for her to utter a word
But she didn't say anything
And I didn't go
To the place that was burning.

iv. I saw on TV the flames that hugged the top of the houses
And danced on scooters
Making them blacker than charcoal,
Near my house at the corner of the street.
There were bodies on the street,
Frozen like sleeping statues.
They had those threads
Wound around their hands and necks
Not one but tens of them.

v. It's night time now.
I sleep hugging her
As tightly as my fragile muscles permitted.
The coldness of her body tingles my fingertips
And the roughness stings.
There are noises of people arguing
In the background.
But I,
I don't care.
Because they're burning the world
And my world is already burnt.

- Kavya Mukhija