Mangoes and Chillies
Smoky tendrils of coolies

Wasn't it forbidden by fathers
And booed by mothers

My chasm that separated
Your ***** that persuaded

don't fly today
Let's snuggle and curl
Till the end of days

Mornings full of jugs
circling the eye like falcons

Afternoons full of sheets
Curdling the static like darks

Evenings full of smokes
Blurring the veins like purples

I wasn’t born to write
With every bent petal,
and every fallen leaf,
my ma’s sweet kisses
And papa’s gentle smile
I learned to write

A five year old me was once fascinated
by the loop of an ‘e’
and the playful swing of an ‘m’,
The wide smile of a ‘d’ delighted me
Words were powerful and mesmerising,
now they lie discarded and ignored
in broken stanzas of self proclaimed irrelevance

I watch the black ugly marks
That taints countless sheets of paper
They surround me in a sea of ink
That once flowed carefully and slowly
A thousand thoughts with each single word
Drained lies my mind, my breath’s not a whisper but a plea
My heart pumps blood not ink, I’m not a poet, it says
Incoherent scribblings mock me with their existence

As a child, confined spaces scared me
But now, a confined mind petrifies me with just a glimpse
A pen stays gripped in my hand
I wonder what it fears more
My inability to let the ink flow coherently
Or my arrogant ramblings, regardless
And fearless of consequences
While I stumble on disjointed verses

A paper aeroplane is my best accomplishment
In my two hour search for freedom and thought
Who cares for pretty words and mystifying couplets?
When the idea of a paper boat seems much more exciting

-പ്രിയാന്ഷി ദാസ്‌

I oathed that I will not think of you.
Like, every oath,
After a while

… One gentle breeze ruffled
through me.

It pauses and paints itself with your face.

How can I ignore your lovely eyes, whatever may have become now.

I leave everything and grab it, the wind.

Then gently …

the breeze starts a rollercoaster
From
All the way up above the sky.

Everything,
all over again.

I hope what they talk about time is true.

That, with time I will no longer remember that feeling when you held me safe in your malnourished arms
And made me dream of your home in Thiruvananthapuram,
That someday I’d felt invincible holding your nimble hands.
That unforeseen, yet delicious kiss that once you took from me,  just after your puked.
And, how I remember that as the best kiss of my life.

I wonder,

If you ever felt the way I did.

The rollercoaster landed with a thud.

And I grabbed the good ol’e breeze that reminds me that, I am delusional just as I was after I met you and before I met you.

And

Gone are the days that you're welcome back.
Au revoir!

You look at me with hope,
I look at you with disbelief,
That look in your eyes is the purest thing I've ever seen,
I want to cover you up in a blanket of love,
Guard you from everything bad,
Kiss your eyes and fix your scars,
But I find myself holding back,
For you're an angel,
And I'm not sure I deserve the honour of loving you...

My mind is in too many places right now,
Don't worry, you're with me in all of them.

A hole in the gut,
And a gut feeling,
Do you trust the apparently holy?

Like a sun with its light
Like a cloud with its rain
Like a moon with its coolness
Like a rain with its drops

Like a eye with its tears
Like a lips with its smile
Like a butterfly with its flower
Like a bee with its honey

I can never be with you
Coz I am alive within you
And  can never be apart from you

One of the most beautiful thing
I have ever seen
Is in your eyes