Time doesn't heal.
And the wound knows it.
Layers gather on the ****
but the damage remains,
hiding itself deep inside
the secret scar

I wish I could see how I
look behind the mirror...
without any light,
or surface.

How would I appear
without my reflection?

I wish to take the journey into
that vast expanse of formlessness
where nothing matters:
shapes, colours and even movements.

A trapped shadow
harbours a similar desire!

I repent for an irreversible folly, again
but its lingering unpleasantness
doesn't forgive my painful guilt.

A bloodless carnage
bleeds our roots.
The invisible shadow
prowls around.
A morbidity hammers in;
An obsession aches with despair.
Entangled in enigmas, dreams shudder;
A helplessness mocks the inertia.
An awkward acceptance creeps in,
But the uneasiness can't escape.

Santa won't confess,
lest it may sound blasphemous
(everything does, these days);
but he wished he could take
a long break from what he does best
or simply quit...

Santa may choose to stay mum
but deep in the recess he feels
that the world doesn't need him anymore;
Innocence has grown up too much too soon
and Love is no more a priority.

Driving his sledge, he asks himself:
is this journey worth taking at all?

This ******* of insight,
imprisons me
in a thought
that mocks the shackles

It's a ghost city
where the dread of death
stalks the dead.  

A corpse gazes
into the mirror
to feign a state of the living.

A brutal past haunts
memory's grave;
Unfinished stories remain forsaken.

A desolate shadow
falls on an unceasing night;
the stillborn day mourns.

Cry of a vanished era
bares a collapsed glory;
Pride falls from grace.

Where is lost
the sweet silence
in the solitude we cherished;
the still truth in
the river of our reflection?

A restless echo
runs into our languid chest
and chases the content out.
A yearning resonates -- everywhere.
There's a ripple
the images come unseen
Haziness eyes
the form of our being.

Serenity compromised
Mirrors shattered
We scream at life
as the blur surfaces.

It goes on in the head,
and too often, manifests itself.
But sometimes, isn't apparent at all.

What spurs the insanity? And how?
Nobody knows.
'Coz the brain is bizarre. And will remain so.

Madness can't be demystified.
Its mystery will grow thicker as
a Ramkrishna or a Mira Bai
attain transcendence in crazy love.
Or a ****** or an Alexander
pursue their weird expansionist dreams.

Who will ever unravel why a Gogh cut off his ear?
Why a Plath found peacefulness in suicide
Or what triggered for a Hemingway to shoot himself?

The 'black dog' of a Churchill chases me down too;
I can hear a Darwin howling like a child within me,
My eyes are blinded by a Newton's illusions
I hold the hand of an insomniac Dickens on an empty street.
And walk the tightrope of hope.

Am I losing it really?
But I feel to be regaining my sense of self
as I try to defy a status quo
and find a reason to be 'abnormal' again for them.
Now, should I run on the road like a possessed Archimedes?
Or yell like that unknown, 'maniac' girl who challenges civilization for its irrationality?

A haunting Koala curse
breathes fire...
a shadow gropes
for a way in the
jungle of my guilts.

A recalcitrant child
didn't mend his ways
despite repeated warnings;
so, the helpless mother
had no choice
but to lock him up in a room
till he implored her to set him free
and asked for forgiveness
with copious tears in his eyes.

But were these tears shed
merely because of frustration,
just to get out of the desperate situation?
Were they honest enough?
Will the child really shape up?

Or the cycle continue?

A cottage left languishing
looks diffidently at me with a
welcoming eye.

A carriage abandoned
lends its hesitant hand
to offer me a seat.

Breeze of a lost past
turns the page of a forgotten chapter;
Time sets the clock back
A vanished glory comes
echoing in silence.

The world stops
to tell us
how breakneck speed
ruins a race,
it goes silent
to teach us
how deafening noise
causes a disconnect,
it bleeds
to show us
how purposeful living
calls for less.

And when you survive this chaos,
Nail those face masks
to your walls,
to keep reminding yourself
how smothered you felt
every time you had to don them.

It will serve as a memory
to a sin that made you gasp for breath
and a life that choked on avarice.

The book of yore
is shut
and lessons unlearnt.

A storm blows the pages
wide open
and the forgotten chapters
come haunting.

A shut-in life,
The baffled walls whispering,
Withdrawal into our lonely,
fatigued selves.

The swift pulse of our
changing priorities;
the stoutly guarded facades falling off,
thoughts wrestling with a constant sense of uncertainty,
a faith trying to salvage
a slipping hope.

Slow acceptance of an
inherent susceptibility;
Habits learning to shatter
the mist of myths,
Dreams making peace with
an obvious yet oblivious reality;

A silent realization to relish the nanoseconds offered now
without nursing an appetite for a future unknown.

A hardship that leaves us
languishing in isolation,
but creates a new bond
with our blessings.