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Sasha Ranganath Feb 2017
black can be two things:
nothing
or everything.
black can tell you stories
or stare at you in silence.
black can be the depths of hell
or the limitless universe.
you can get lost in its darkness
or be found in its unparalleled dimensions.

black can be cold and idle
or etch an agonizing fire in your heart.
it can invite you for dinner
or devour you whole.
you can hear your blood rushing in its quiet
or be haunted by the resident banshee.

you can fall in love under the swirls of black ink when your tears touch the wet brush strokes
and you can lose yourself in the intricacy of her black pupils at midnight under the moon.
but you can also look death in the eyes and submit yourself to it
you can feel your heart blackening with the poison of heartbreak and grief.
you can feel the raging sun and the crumbling constellations if you close your eyes hard enough.
thunder jolts through your body like lightning on live wire
intensity builds up leaving  you breathless but begging for more.

black can be the moment you took your first breath
and black can be the moment you take your last.
Sasha Ranganath Feb 2017
screaming at the top of my lungs won’t help anymore
because i’m always going to return to a home
which waits for me in a spectrum of disappointments and crises.

what good is a blade to the arm going to do
when blood won’t erase the permanent scars that already exist
and my ears ring with screams of my abandoned past.

i believed i could indulge in trustfall
but that only made my trust fall
even further down the vortex
of mistake after mistake after mistake
am i incorrigible.

am i incorrigible i ask my reflection in the mirror
and the mirror breaks.
it crumbles, shatters and breaks
and tells me to go away.

another year of existence goes by
my existence that’s caught in a cobweb of broken promises
and hands that were let go of.
“happy birthday”
congratulations, you’ve lived to see another day.

you’ve lived to see another day but in what way
in what way will you move
in what way will you rescue yourself
from love across continents,
four thousand four hundred and eighty three miles away
how will you save yourself from drowning
in the width between your stretching fingers and the blade
how will you stop hurting yourself
by assuming responsibility and clinging on to false longevity.
you cross your own limits too ******* often
too ******* often to even notice that the line exists.

take a ******* break
you don’t need to keep polishing
your heart of gold
you don’t need to keep ripping
your sanity apart for a couple of approving nods
you don’t need to say yes to everything
you see because you need to be free,
you are not in a pod
and you are not a pea.

you’re hearing voices, noises
uncontrollable, you’re not okay
and that’s okay.
but how do i survive
when the one i love
can’t even look me in the eyes
and say it’ll be fine
how can i live in peace
when time moves so ******* slowly
and the me that loved the sunlight
is craving for long nights
that dim light in the corner
is the closest i'll ever get
to loving the sunrise.
Sasha Ranganath Feb 2017
​when you wish an earthquake would pave way for rubble to make you a cradle until the gravestone can be placed,

when you wish an airplane would crash into your window and pin your heart and heaviness away,

when youre breathing to hang on to life, yet want to give it away

when you can hear your lungs fill and deflate, making you feel like youre going to cave in

when you feel the noise around you is slowly going to pluck every braincell out of your head and not let them regenerate

when the music next to your bed is the only thing keeping you sane when footsteps make your heart race when clawing at your legs keeps the screams at bay when making another mark of metal seems too far away

when youre just yelling for the sun to go away because the sun makes people stay awake with noise grenades flying here and there it’s chaotic and a vortex of despair

am i being selfish

because noise grenades are borne by people trying to live another day while im here in my bed under blankets  

cursing them away
Sasha Ranganath Feb 2017
if life is like a box of chocolates
and i will never know what i’ll get,
how long do i have to await
the poisoned one?

or is every piece filled
with a little bit of poison
that takes eighty years to ****
or seventy five
or tomorrow
or today.

you ever wake up at 6 am on a holiday
and try to force yourself back to sleep?
bur your body just refuses and insists
to slouch into the arms of your mind
the arms of your mind that keep you
in shackles of an uncertain next second
what if a bomb goes off
what if an earthquake happens
what if that plane in the sky i hear crashes into my window
what if my neighbours die
what if someone is murdered in front of my eyes
what if what if what if
this uncertain next second is certain
to be the cradle i lay in as i take my last breath
will you say goodbye?
or will you walk by like you’ve always done?

will you fulfill the hunger at the pit of my stomach?
will you play my favourite songs at my funeral?
(will there even be a funeral?
do you know my favourite songs?)

this uncertain next second will sing me to slumber
and shake me awake at 6 am on a holiday
remind me of my 2 am poetry
and put my body in your hands to carry.
Sasha Ranganath Feb 2017
i love you so much
today
tomorrow
and the uncertain next second.
through our anxiety and my tendencies
through your nausea and guilt.

my love,
i will love you today
i will love you tomorrow
but what if there's no tomorrow.
what if i turn to ash
what if i'm six feet below the ground
will you know?
will you realise?
4483 miles away?
will your hands reach my burning body?
will your lips touch my lips that are fading?
will your tears stain my face that now serves as a garden for new life?
will i feel your knees making a burrow in the ground
as you crouch over and tell me all the things you never could?

tell me will you promise me not to make it rain too much?
give me your word, you'll find another someone to love
say you'll get off the mud and make your way back home
because i have the privilege today
of easing you out of your misery, even by just a budge
but tomorrow you may be the one
trying to open my eyes, giving me a nudge
wake up
don't go just yet
we never got to dawn or dusk.

my love,
we never got to dawn or dusk
but you will
you will, right?
let go before you hit the bone
let go before you can't feel a thing anymore
let go
remember me
but let go.

for the last time,
i'm sleepy
goodnight
i love you.
for my love all the way in sweden
Sasha Ranganath Sep 2016
sitting down drawing circles on sand
by the ocean for 16 years without disturbances,
save a few hefty feet trampling down sand castles
but then one day something happened
and an overwhelming wave comes hurling itself at you,
and you have no escape plan despite living on the sand all your life
the wave comes bearing galaxies from atlantis,
blinding starlight, and a myriad perfect seashells.
it feels like an eternity,
being consumed by the wave as you're given
a tour of every attraction there is,
receiving free samples every now and then.
you succumb to the star dust,
enthralling you like a child at disneyland,
or tumblr teens on the fourth of july.
it feels like you're the only one lucky enough
to witness this spectacle, and you're marvelling
marvelling
marvelling
marvelling
marvel-
.
.
.
.
.
no air
you're gasping
muddy
sand in your eyes
and through the excruciating discomfort,
you see a hundred other silhouettes looking back at you.
---;
this is how it was, loving him briefly.
and this will stare him in the face,
but perhaps his eyes, too, full of sand
will stare right back at me
“silhouettes” he'll say
“silhouettes are what make my day”
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