My prayers have you
And then they have the heartbroken cries of a heartbroken woman
Asking for the pain to stop.

Asking for an answer. Asking for relief.
But it's mostly me saying
Ya Allah, I cant
Help me.
I cant
I cant
I cannot
I just cant.

Oh what I wouldn’t try to do
For but a drop
Of Bangalore rain

The steamy wet mud incense
Soaks through the all-too-blinded
New money two-storey houses

But, oh, what’s that
A 2% glimmer of something
A je ne sais quoi?

A 2% vegetable-market-mixed-with-chai
A 2% late night kabab stall
A 2% unsightly shopping mall basement

A 2.5% biryani from my mother’s hands
A 2.5% cat resting on a soft four poster bed
(Dark wood, of course)
A 2.5% afternoon nap lull

An 86.5% sound of a heart weeping,
Far far away,
For home.

I have found
That my most recent
Words of prayer
Constitute
The most basic
The most raw
The most desperate
Pleases and
I cannots

I cannot
I cannot
Please
I can't
I can't, Oh God,
Help me.

I can't...
Feel alive anymore.
My substance has evaporated
Leaving behind a love-empty shell
My waking hours are so consumed
By fires of what-ifs and whys
My sanity burning away
Thick black fumes of tears
Choking my already dying desire to see tomorrow
To live any moment of this
Pathetically tragic existence

"Why do we even feel?"
I find myself crying into
The much-too-sick-of-me
Green woven prayer mat
Why do we feel
Why do I feel?
When all my emotions are inherently
Corrupt
Why do I feel if I'm not entitled to these emotions?

The wrath and anger
The injustice of it all sears into my skin
Burning flesh
Before it softens into grief
A shred of understanding
Grief, pain, sorrow
Hugging the bones of my ribcage
Trying or attempting
And failing so miserably
To contain the consuming pain

White hot flashes of pain
Washing over me like volcanic waves
Dissociating my un-alive personality
Going about the motions of my daily life
With unconscious duty towards
The important elements

There's no path leading back
I've taken it apart
One spoonful of earth at a time
Its gone
Sometimes, I see a glimmer
And I'm bestowed with false hope
Sweet hope
That maybe, perhaps
Just maybe
Mayhaps
Things will be okay


But they wont, not tonight
Not for a long time
Not forever
Never

She shrugged her tired shoulders
"I'm gone", she smiled sadly.

I am gone.

I’ve been crying
In the most beautiful places
Pregnant teardrops
Straight out my cold
Wicked heart.

If I could even begin
To explain to you
How my sleeping soul
Awakens at the deep threes
Of winter frosted mornings
Before the stirring
Of the spotted cuckoos
And the formation
Of sweet pre-mountain dew
And yells well worn
Verses of prayer
Into the warm abyss
The w a r m
A b y s s
I’d feel exactly twenty point
Six three nine percent better.