Pragya Bhagat's Poem:
this poem isn’t an answer
it’s a question
how do we become the stories we tell ourselves
how do we become the stories we tell
how do we become the stories
how do we become
how do we
how

My response:
Answer Can Be

Or rather the stories become us
Perhaps no becoming
Perhaps they just are
As they wait for expression
Hidden beyond sight

Was the world ever tame,
was the work of mankind ever done,
did we believe we'ld watch the world

work better with our intervention,
our flood preventions failing, time after time,

then came the fuel from eons too distant, as time flees,

we trust the expositors, setting knowledge in foldable
orders of value, secrets worth keeping to use in consort.

Having witnessed the intention declared, the prophet,
bows and backs away, laughing to himself, happy hunting,

here I come, seeking something I may distantly need,
not now, though, ghostly ghucking surrealism seems

certainly, this pose, the position I hold, paid for repose,
bending certain assumptions into gumptions taken on odds,

you bet I can't make myself let you read my mind.
I win.

Larger worlds live in constant once,
upon this time in this bubble.
For a poet in Tanzania it is tomorrow already.

Unexpected things

never startle me, I just --


respond too slowly.

In response to Edge by Sylvia Plath

"The moon has nothing to be sad about,  
Staring from her hood of bone.

She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag."
-Edge by Sylvia Plath


The night drips on and on
As they all just watch.
Wonder what got her so far-
What's got her in knots.
This is how they wanted her,
No denying that now.
Perfection in her silence,
Her last breath,
Her broken vow.
The moon has nothing to be sad about.

She looks down on her with apathy,
Just another face in the crowd-
They watch her as she scorches it
All to the ground.
Her body a vessel for pain and for persons,
Her mind gone numb from being treated so worthless.
The moon-
Having seen this all before,
Illuminates the horror within that small home
Staring from her hood of bone.

Although not new,
It is still tragic-
To see such a woman drained of all her magic.
To have once brought life,
The same that she has taken,
And now on her kitchen floor they all lie
Naked.
The moon just sends them back
To the roots of being- for
She is used to this sort of thing.

Life here on earth feels particularly brutal,
Like there is no escape
And to dream of such would be futile.
Don’t let it get you down,
For it is truly just womanhood,
You belong to the silence-
To the frowns.
So tightly sew that pretty mouth shut,
Sworn to be either dead or gagged-
Her blacks crackle and drag.

This here drunk moon sets
The bottle not to blame
A feeble heart all but smitten

“I imagine a dreamscape
crafted in fluorescence, by your words
Where no razors fall like trinkets from the sky
But a blindfold of trust comforts the eyes.
May you, I pray, feel un-alone
Though we be strangers in our own homes,
I get it.”

Colour my words, world
Light or dark, all caged in its tunes
Tongues lash out in cacophony