Sweats flowing like falls
She fell

She fell-
             inlove at first sight
From that day on
            you became her kryptonite
Your cries
            made her petrified
Your smiles
           became her home at the westside

Sundown.
Dark town.
Beneath the twinkling stars
She craddled you in her mystic arms
Singing lullabyes of rainbows and charms

12 in the midnight
Child, don't be terrified
This is not Cinderella's tale
The magic won't be gone
Lift up the dress's veil
You'll see
               - the one who fell
Your lady in shining armor
              - the fairy god mother
The one who stays
                        lifelong
         till the hourglass breaks
She'll be there
                    forever

my mother's words
always rang before
any step forward,
halfway down the hallway,
i realized;
my destiny was not
for her to write

I brought her to the hospital
And I know she is in pain
She says she’ll die today
But I know she’d sustain.

As painful it may be
As fearsome it may seem
My legs are shaking deep inside
I can hear her Scream.

You’d say I can’t feel the pain
She says its life threatening
I believe she’ll do it well
This moment of awakening.

The Doctor consoles her gently
The nurses prepare the room
My heart beats fast, yet sinks a bit
My baby is about to bloom.

I watch the process in silence
My heart is aching slow
The Doctor asks her to push
Our Child will make Her Glow.

Its a Girl and She’s beautiful
I heard the Doctor say
Everyone knows I cried
Saying Happy Mothers’ Day!!


Prashant Shaurya ©

All Rights Reserved
06/05/2021

P.S: I wrote this in the labor room while watching my wife give birth to our Daughter. It took me about 5 to 7 minutes to write till the second last stanza. I wrote the last stanza after seeing my newborn baby. My Daughter is my Universe!!

the asteroid hit the earth so long ago that
                                                             i do not remember a time before.  
(the bones of dinosaurs do not remember a time before they were
petrified into brittle and fragile memories; the moon does not recall
who she was before she got stuck in the earth’s orbit; uranus knows
nothing of how he came to spin on his side.)

you could stick your hand through
any of the gas giants and find
                                                          your whole body
                                                           slidi­ng through.  
this same theory can be applied to my skin.  i have very little gravity,
or at least it feels that way most days.

maybe it depends on how you look at it:
one way is perfect, and the other all wrong.  the woman in the casket could either be sleeping or dead.  she could either be a stranger or my mother.  the head or the tail.  the light or the dark.  the two sides of the moon.  the comet striking through the night sky.  the interdimensional toll could refuse to let you through.  the cult could accept or deny your entry request.  there is one and there is the other.  the upside down.  the rightside up.  the parallel universe.  the evil twin.  it’s fresh and then it’s rotten.  this could either hurt a lot or a little.  it depends on how much you let in: how willing you are to bend to the emotional blow.

science says that the human body tends to
                                                            forget physical pain as a survival tactic.
but science says jack **** about emotional pain.

so am i living?  or am i just existing?
     the difference is six feet deep.

I’m thinking of the faded checkered pattern that has been
smoothed away by time on the dark cloth seats of a Nissan Pathfinder
                                          driving down Ryan Road on a hot day in June.
My mother, in the front seat, singing along to a Spice Girls cassette.  

I’m thinking: red, plastic, crab-shaped sandbox and
                                      McDonald’s Happy Meal toys.  
I’m thinking: light princess pink, seafoam green, and robin’s egg blue.  
I’m thinking of a framed cheetah cross stitch, hanging on the wall of what
                                      used to be our bedroom at my grandparent’s house.
I’m thinking: Barbie doll houses and Hot Wheels and a cul-de-sac at
                                                                ­                     the end of the street.  

The sweet smell of cigar smoke.  The ice cold splash of the garden hose.  The pop of a bubble.  The sting of soap in the eye.  Dreams by The Cranberries.  As Long as You Love Me by The Backstreet Boys.  A HelloKitty boombox slowly spitting out vapor when the deck builders hit a power line while digging.  The deer in the backyard looking for corn.  The faded wood of a playset that was never really played on.

My father: sitting alone on a splintered bench by the firepit at the edge of the woods, empty beer cans at his feet, chain smoking cigarettes, and humming along to a song that is stuck—forever stuck—on the tip of my tongue.
I do not know if this happened.  I cannot ask him.  
(I’m not sure if I would want to ask him.)  
But I can make an educated inference that that line of
fiction is really nonfiction.  
A memory that feels like a phantom limb.  
                            Sounds like the sharp crinkle of static.  
                                                     Co­vered in a gossamer, dreamlike haze.  

There is a distinct otherness to this memory, to who
                                     I think I was before the trauma.  
We are two different people.  A yin and a yang.  A day and a night.  
The hermit crab is soft beneath its hard shell.
The asbestos is not apparent within the insulation.  
You cannot see the lead in the paint.
The mold inside the fruit.

Mother don't cry,
Have I disappointed you?
I know I have.
I know when I have, it ***** that I do.
And I’m sorry
that despite my best efforts,
I am not the child that will check what expectations fill your list,
But rather, am the one that will make you create new ones.

She loves you, she loves you not?

She loves you.

You learnt from somewhere, that tenderness -
that no-word smile.

You learnt from her.
You learnt from her.

Where is she now?

Missing from her own eyes, own hands.

You cling, you cry.

She loves you.
She loves you.

I will hold you 'til she’s found.