Phantom,
In your ethereal realm,
Alone in your deepest thoughts,
Do you remember me?

Phantom,
Show me those pretty white claws,
Tear into my chest and write out the contracts
Spare the clause, I’ll applaud
Knowing I’ll serve love like a cause
A refugee amid war,
Where the roses cut with their thorns
I’d bleed out to chase you down,

My eyes search in the bleeding pallid rays
Cutting through canopies -
Dancing upon the umbral silhouettes
Hoping that magic can make you appear
Tell me you don’t feel anything anymore
That it’s all a fantastical dream wrapped in fiction

Reach out to me, please, with your diaphanous touch
Soothe my unattended storms
Make the space between you and me less impossible
Where I can taste the air where your lips tease
Please take me with you.

Could the see-through glass
Weep a little for me one last..
I’m trying to leave it all behind
But we are like vines -
Twist as we twine,
Why can’t we tangle endlessly?

Phantom,
Tell me when you wake,
Do you even remember me?

A diffident claim of the litre of liquid that singes my face.
Or an interjection, on the stiletto-edge of oppression,
Like the load of hands, flush against my iliac crests, like reins.
Not leading to any transaction
Through licking clean the wounds of a lifetime
That hurt with or without you.
(There’s a softer spot than the one you spoil for yourself.)

LEAVING    /    HOME
----------------------------------
Can’t believe / I’ll possibly get used to

Your aversion; / This treatment, or feeling

I’ve known all / Too well; of

Your negligence, & more, / Your delicacy,

With which I used to coexist —/ It is

Unimaginable, yet / Something more

Real / Than I’ve ever seen.

The cleave of your thigh is perfumed by something I am allergic to.
A large hit to my solar plexus for going down on you!

Custard-blonde tendrils dangle before me
Like a field of yaks, grazing tentatively upon your ****** back.
Lately they have been tumbling out spectacularly in clumps of fibre,
Forming barley or shellac-colored runes in the shower.

While cleaning the drain, mistakenly I
Touched a pale Daddy-long-legs that was crushed into a polka dot,
And let out a deafening scream
For you to stomp on its itsy-bitsy corpse till your footsoles wore brick red fishnets.
Then, left with only seven legs to lift its ***, it’d gone down like a ******.

After gazing into one’s lashless mung bean eyes,
I think I am going mad as the house flies
Who pivot into glass to pass their time,
Self-contained and distended as ostrich eggs

Bathing in a stream
Water cool crisp and cleansing
Nature at its best

Among eight billion choices,

I chose the one whose heart doesn’t beat for me.

I chose the one who wasn’t born for me.

I chose the one who doesn’t even know me.

I wondered why… until one night, I understood.

Because—

He is the Dasharatha Nandana, every girl dreams of.

He is the Devaki Nandana ,every mother longs for.

He is the Rama,the strength every sibling leans on.

He is the Sri Krishna,the friend every Sudhama needs.

He is the dream, that lingers even when I wake.

He is the story, written in every heart.

He is the sun, that brightens the darkest days.

He is the river, that never stops flowing.

He is the wind ,that carries whispered prayers.

He is the word,that even a thousand words fail to define.

He is the nature, embracing endless miracles.

He is the ocean, holding countless mysteries.

He is the light, breaking through the darkness.

He is not mine, yet he belongs to all.

He is not just a person, but a presence .

A force, a legend, a name whispered in every era.

He is beyond dreams, beyond time.

Yet, he is the one my heart recognizes.

A Beloved of the Universe, A Stranger to Me.

A Love Meant for All, But Never for Me.

The Distance Between My Prayer and His Name.

Devotion Without a Destination.

That five-seven-five is a scam,
Just nature plus seasonal spam.
A frog in a bog—
Wow! A leaf! And some fog!
It’s a tweet with a syllable jam.

Now limericks think they’re so sly,
With their jigs and their wink of the eye.
But their punchlines grow stale,
Like a bar yuck from Yale—
It’s the dad joke of poetry. Why?

Oh Shakespeare, forgive what’s been done—
Fourteen lines on a love that won’t run.
With their iambic moans,
And romanticized groans—
They're just Tinder swipes dressed as the sun.

Repetition’s the name of its game,
But by stanza three, it’s all shame.
You repeat and repeat,
Till your brain hits delete—
Was it clever, or just all the same?

Acrostics spell TRY HARD down the side,
A format no critic can abide.
Each line bends and breaks,
Just for symmetry’s sake—
And the message gets lost in the ride.

Free verse gets a pass, but just barely—
Too often it screams “Look, I’m arty!”
With no rhythm or aim,
Just vibes and a name—
Like a drunk giving TED Talks at parties.

---

There once was a muse unconfined,
Who laughed at each rule tightly lined.
When pure thought took flight,
It outshone every rite—
For raw truth outclasses form every time.

small air sound collisions
each word a shared energy

a voice on the wind
a wave of the sea

a child growing
getting old

each and every
energy transforms

a voice sounding out
a voice set free.'