The dark mouth of agony made a promise

A promise to keep the pain going

The branches that had grown inside the heart slowly set forth

It encompassed the mind and laid eggs in the skull

The numbness was never but just a rumour by then.

All the skies were grey and black was setting in

Lights were broken and the glass scattered everywhere

It was as it always was

Agony revelled in the brokenness of the horizon

It had fallen to bits.

As it was meant to. 

 I have some nights of sleep leftover

From the times when walls closed in on me

And sleep being the bitch it is jumped right out of my eyes.

I carry these nights in my pockets, turning them around like loose change

They don’t make the same noises

But they feel like a cat’s underbelly.

I take them out sometimes

Look at them with paranoid intensity

And put them back in my pocket with chagrin

And a little bit of possessive energy

I whistle to myself

And think however it is,

That bitch is mine. 

I pinch myself to understand that I occupy space in this world.

I look into the mirror

And take a hard look

I exist. I am.

I have my shadow tugging at my feet trying to take me forward.

My heart pumps out blood and I get Goosebumps when I am scared

But I feel like I am floating

And no one can really see me

That If I just duck, I can see the darkness beneath this world

And all the gooey dingy corners of the emptiness are just waiting to embrace me

Where then do I belong?

In the emptiness that exceeds and supersedes life

Or the world where every day is a fight I get tired of?

My body aches and my subconscious cries in agony

I look towards the wall and my shadow is still tugging

With all the will I could muster

I take a step

It’s still the same

But I think I have a promise of tomorrow.

The fight in me had died

I gave in to the spasms that came with the rains

Drop by drop I immersed in it

Drop by drop I evaporated

My senses dulled every time I opened my eyes,

Vision was not needed I understood.

So I stood with my arms wide open

And my eyes closed so tight it should have hurt

But nothing came; neither the hurt nor the darkness

I felt meadows and saw colours I thought were extinct

I felt a caress of the branches of long ago

When I was more me than I am someone else

It looped me in and whispered

“I will never let go”

I smiled,

“You too shall pass.”

Now she needed medication to stay the course. She wondered whether every smile that touched her lips were medically induced. It’s all chemicals. It’s all function. Finding herself was becoming a little harder each day.

She looked at the ceiling, counting the cracks and letting her mind drift. The song on the ipod was droning on in her ears. She never really listened to lyrics. She liked the hum of the music. If it made her thoughts dance, it was enough.

She had come a long way from the naive little girl full of impossible hopes and dreams and unrealistic expectations and views of the world. Now years later, she smiled at her cynical self. She had gone through the worst. Breakups, heart breaks, betrayals, failure, disappointment and yet somehow she was proud of herself. She had not given up. She was still here, wasn’t she?

Slowly she realised she had lost the habit of justifying herself too. Why would she? Did she need to? She always was the fiercely independent woman and maybe she had drifted from the path a bit. However, now she was coming back, bit by bit. Every step she took was an effort she could not possibly explain to anyone. It was all chemicals mixed with emotions that run on rainbows and unicorns.

Understanding her was a difficult feat and it was high time she gave up trying to make people see things her way. It’s much easier to do things than to get people along with you with persuasion.

The ipod was still humming a song in her ears. She tried concentrating on the lyrics. Then a minute later she got up to make some tea and thought of painting her thoughts on paper. She was sure she would end up watching a sitcom. 

First Slam

It starts with the genitalia,

The difference of it

It does not matter when you are young  and Mother says it’s just meant to be.

It starts to matter when you grow older

And summers don’t allow you to take off the sweaty t-shirt at home.

When closed doors have a different meaning

When you can’t sleep beside your brother as it is not “proper” anymore.

It is never a good different. It is never special

Hide your bras, your panties from the menfolk while their underwear can swing from the lines in glory.

You must never tell anyone you are having your periods. Tell them you are not well

The pads must be hidden

It’s not nice to talk about it.

Don’t get near the altar. Don’t touch anything for it will too become impure.

‘Don’t’ becomes the resonating truth of existence.

Mothers start to worry when your breasts grow. For breasts give men the opportunity to do something with their hands.

Darkness amplifies its perils when the daughter is growing up.

Men everywhere look like predators.

There are hushed talks with elders where advice is given. Remember only the woman can get pregnant. Only the woman carries the blame. Only the woman carries the shame.

The penis becomes the weapon and all penises are the parasites who seek refuge in your private place.

The place you should keep pure. For you have no desire.

 It’s only men who seek desire. For a man by any other name is never a slut.

The difference does not go away.

You have breasts and you bleed once a month.

You will be judged by the size of your boobs and the tightness of your vagina.

You will be judged if you smoke , drink alcohol or wear clothes unfit for the woman in our society.

You cannot be just friends with a man. You are giving signals you are unaware of.

If you show parts of your body, you are asking for it.

You are never your own person. You are the daughter, the girlfriend, the wife, the mother, the sister. Never just a woman.

And you will always aspire to become a man, for Penis envy is the books and no one envies a vagina.

It starts with genitalia

It ends when you own it.

If loneliness could ever go about in the darkness of the night, it would assume my name and identity. It would swirl in the winds and kiss the breath of nothingness that surrounds everything. It would sing songs that no one can sing along with, for in quietness of its mind, a million melodies are born and none are privy to its secrets.

I wonder how cruelty takes over a person. I wonder how it kisses the thoughts of a numbing mind and makes it its own. I wonder.

I wonder because I have no answer. I don’t want a psychological answer, neither do I want a biological one. I need a humane answer. I need to understand how any person can hurt another living being and live.

My sudden wonder stems from an incident at my alma mater. Someone poisoned 4 dogs in the dead of the night resulting in the death of one and serious health issues in the other three. They would have been dead too if not for the wonderful humans who love them and took care of them.

The first thought that came into my head when I read about the incident was that I want to inflict as much pain to the culprit as he or she did to the dogs. Does that make me as bad as the person who poisoned the dog? My rationale is that my loved ones were hurt, killed. What is their rationale? What possible excuse did they give themselves while poisoning the innocent dogs who have been in the campus probably longer than they have. They are loved, they are cherished and even if they were not, who gives anyone the right to take another life?

Every day I find something to cringe at, something to feel awful about, and something that makes me wonder about humanity as a whole. Every day I tell myself shit happens. Is that the way we are going to be? Are we going to tell our children that shit happens? Move on? Are we going to be the harbingers of pathetic philosophies where cruelty is a given?

Even as I write these things down, I realise all I was able to do after the incident was write my feelings down. That makes me feel awful. And shit happens. 

Another forkful of rice. Chew. Gulp. Sigh.

She mechanically finished eating the plate of rice that she had so unceremoniously mixed with the egg curry. Her stomach would stop troubling her now. It was fed. Her mind was another matter.

She had woken up late. The previous night had been tough. She remembered in bits and pieces the sound of her crying and her heart pounding against her chest. She remembered the dreadful feeling she had at one point. She had felt suicidal. She was afraid of what her mind was capable of.

She hadn’t had a fight. She wasn’t sad. She just had a lump in her chest and felt like the world was closing in on her. She knew her psychological troubles would catch up to her from time to time. She just did not know that they would not give her any warning. Or that she would feel so broken after each episode.

The night before, during the constricted breathing and sounds of crying, she had wanted to hold the neighbour’s dog close to her. Suddenly it felt like the dog would be the solution. She likes dogs; the undivided attention they gave her. The look on their faces when she petted them. The warmth of their attempted hugs. At that moment, she felt like the dog could do wonders. It was 2 in the night. Not practical to wake the neighbours.

Right now sitting at her desk, putting forks full of rice in her mouth, she was thinking of the neighbour’s dog again.

She could not breathe. Felt suffocated sitting there on her chair pretending to work when her mind was swirling with words that could not possibly make up coherent sentences. She needed a break. She needed breathing space. She was suffocating internally, and did not know what would help.

She just knew that the urge to run away was constantly on the brink of taking hold of her. She did not where she would run to. She just knew she did not like being in the cramped space her life provided her at the moment.

People tried talking to her. All she heard were words that bounced off her. She could feel them sliding off the wall she had build around her consciousness. She nodded, smiled and sometimes appropriately frowned. Don’t worry they said, it’ll be fine. She wanted to scream.

Her mind was its own demons. She had no idea how she could be thinking and feeling so many things at the same time. However, somehow her mind accommodated all her ill bodings and depressive thoughts. They were haphazard. They were sinister. She wanted to scream louder.

Her legs were twitching, so was her consciousness. She wanted with all her might to pass out. To be in a state of oblivion where nothing would bother her. She hadn’t felt the need to be left alone in a long while. She knew it would not make the problems go away. She still wanted to breathe more than anything else.

for him...

Alone in a crowd of smoke
Smokes and ladders to nowhere in particular
Just smitten by a desire
to be somewhere that is not here

Here I am without you,
Not somewhere I would want to be

She was happy. She did not know whether it was the view of the mountains or the rocks that beckoned her. She was also mesmerised by the sea that kept trying to lick her feet. She thought it was the best pet she could wish for. It was constant; it had a promise of being there. Changing its moods but never changing in its inherent nature of just coming back to get more of you.

What surprised her most was the fact that she was happy. She still had those lingering doubts and tensions in the back of her mind, but nature had taken those and shoved them far up their behinds. She was one with the sky that she gazed at. The vulture that circled the sky was flying just beside her. Yes she was flying; flying with all her might. And she did not even have to close her eyes for it.

The vacation had done wonders for her psyche. All the muck that she had carried around with her seemed to have washed away with the sand that the sea kept eating up. The rocks she sat on to caress the sea seemed like home. She wondered why people ever loved going to malls and concrete buildings. This is where poems are made. This is where prose is built. The foundations of all creations can be found amongst the flawed and perfect things around her at that moment.

The place reminded her of who she was. She could think of poetry again. She remembered who she stood for and what her life meant to her. It reinforced the urgency of love in her; the importance of loved ones and the creativity that lingered in her senses all the time.

She was at home. She was going to be back for sure. 

Ankles sore from walking the mile,
Heart beats thump at intervals;
We commence our journey,
Stop at pitfalls,
Walk on where the sun stops burning.