Not Just Words.

The words
“Your body was built to take a lot of pain”
Don’t hold true
For the pain you put it through
Owing to reasons
You aren’t even sure of.

The words
“Everything about you is beautiful”
Don’t refer to the brutality
With which you treat yourself
Wanting to turn into
Another’s idea of beauty
And losing all semblance of your own.

The words
“No matter what, never stop running”
Will be ones you can’t relate to
When your legs betray you
Every step of the way
And you can’t figure out
Who you’re actually running from.

The words
“Change is the only constant”
Will haunt you
As you set out in the pursuit
To change your body
Not because you love it
But because you couldn’t hate it more.

The words
“looking back on the past
with rose-tinted glasses”
Might become your reality
When your eyes lose the ability
To see things as they are.

And once you are where you want to be
The goal, the journey,
The words “Everyone loves me”
Will cease to hold value
For how does it matter
If they love you or not
When you can’t even love yourself?

Faces.

As I rush through the crowds day after day
Arms weighed down by the errands I’m running
Or by the weight of my own expectations
Heading always, to some place I need to be
Never without a purpose, always in a hurry
My eyes often tend to fall
On faces that stand out
Making me want to stand still and take them in.
A face with hair cropped short and eyes smiling so wide
The wrinkles under them disappear;
And arms mirroring mine
Weighed down perhaps,
By the burden life piles on them
And yet, making my burdens lighter with that smile.
Or the face that boarded the bus that day
Witty, knowing eyes sunken into their sockets
That came to life
With a mere request to sit in my place
Waving a frail hand at me, as I went along my way.
Or even the face with purposeful eyes
Running across the platform against time
Finding a moment yet
To guide fellow eyes that could not find their way
And helping them make it in time.
And the countless other faces I observe
Every day, each with a set destination
Making others’ journey to theirs a little easier
And travelling with me to mine
As visions that wouldn’t leave my mind.
So when people ask me
As I tell them about the faces I collect
What it is that in them I see,
How do I tell them what I’m looking for
Is but, a fleeting glimpse of me.

Catalysts.

You choose your words carefully
From the select collection
You call your artillery,
Shortlisting the choicest few
Then filtering them through
To discard the ones
That don’t seem destructive enough.
You sharpen their edges
Testing their precision as you go
Then coat them lovingly with gasoline
Trying to achieve
The degree of flammability you desire
So much so
That when you throw them at me
I burn my tongue
In my futile attempts
To have them affect you so.
You throw your head back
And laugh, no holds barred,
Your laughter engulfed in vitriol
For the sole purpose
Of adding fuel to fire,
The fire you’ve set me on.
And all this while,
All I can do is flail my arms
Helplessly in the air
Forgetting that they’re ablaze
Fanning my fire in the process,
And wonder, in sheer confusion, how
The venomous words you spew
Don’t end up scalding you too.

Bereft.

You were always a little reckless, a little restless
So I’d hold your hand tightly in mine
Wanting to protect you from all semblance of harm
And yet, every time you tried to wrestle out of my grasp
I’d let you go
Knowing you’d find your way back to me.
How was I to know
This time when you threatened
To leave my hand and run
I’d have to come looking for you instead
For you have ventured so far away
My harried cries can’t reach you anymore
Beyond the tangible boundaries of the world I dwell in,
A world without you.
They say things you never imagined could happen
Seem like a dream when they do
And it feels like a reverie to me right now
One that I would gladly be brought out of.
Someone attempts to bring me back to reality
Uttering careful words of consolation
Saying you’re in a better place now
But what could be a better place for you
Than in my lap, as I pat you mindlessly
Trying to lull you to sleep
Unaware that I should cherish these moments
Before I run out of them.
Your friends, they call out to me
Asking me where you are
Why you aren’t out there with them
Hitting shots, and fielding balls
And for the first time ever
I helplessly utter, “I don’t know”
For how do I explain to them
That their questions
Aren’t very different from mine?
But one question I have
That no one can dare attempt to answer.
It revolves around the designation
I proudly called mine, until now
The one that you bestowed upon me
The one you took along with you as you left
But I wish you’d waited
Just long enough to tell me,
Since you’ve left me behind
Changing the meaning
Of every word I’ve ever known
What do I call myself now?

L’arte D’arrangiarsi.

Italian- the art of making something out of nothing.

It’s considered an art, y’know-
The ability to make something out of nothing
But trust them to twist everything
Into unwarranted diatribes and accusations
For they’d rather have me believe
I excel at the ‘art’ of making
A mountain out of a molehill,
Than try to see reason
In something I’ve fought battles over
For so long
And I’ve finally gathered the courage to say
That the ocean that sweeps over me without warning
At times when I’m sitting on my bed,
Aimlessly staring at a non-existent spot on the wall
And washes away all my happy memories
Is not nothing
And the cold gusts of wind
That send chills down my spine
Every time I go running in the parking lot
And leave in their wake, all my sad memories
Like soul-sucking dementors
Who cannot wait to kiss me
Are not figments of my imagination
That I weave into words
Only to entertain myself, and
Anyone who would care to listen
And the whispers that jolt me awake
Every time I try to sink into sleep
Playing cruel guessing games,
Sounding like a different person each time
Singing elegies to my happiness
And expecting me to join in
Are not mere stories I try to kill time with.
The screams they try to stifle
Are not songs I sing
At a higher volume
Just so they’d listen,
Nor is my trembling proof
Of the fact that I’m lying.
The tears I cannot shed
Are not weapons to win people over,
My plight not a prompt
To elicit ideas and arguments from them.
I hide in my bosom
Things I do not have intelligence of
Battles that are not mine to fight
Errors I can never set right.
And this, I try to tell them
Every time they ask what’s wrong with me
But all they do is ask, and never wait for the answer
For they’ve already figured it out for themselves
And every time they declare it to me
All I can do is whisper in defense
That that which is wrong with me
Is not “nothing” I “make into something”,
No, it’s not nothing
But oh, how I wish it was.

Of Horcruxes.

The day I stop being
Which I eventually will,
Do not shed tears of longing and loss
Do not try to find me
In ashen remains
As they become one with the elements
Or in the insipid chants and recitals
Held in my memory
You’d rather not attend.
Seek me not
In forced prayers for my departed soul
Or in the empty monologues
They deliver to establish
How well they knew me,
For we both know
These ephemeral things
Will begin and cease to exist
Soon after I do.
So bother not with them,
Look for me instead
In the first drops of morning dew
That appear on the grass
Or in the sound that soles make
As they meet the track
With energetic fervor.
You might find me
In hours spent in the kitchen
Trying to whip up
Some or the other delicacy
Or even in the attempts
To taste the steam
Rising from a cup of bittersweet coffee.
I’ll meet you in verses
I’d like and couldn’t help reading out
To whoever happened
To be sitting next to me.
You’ll find me for sure
In a newly opened pack of mints
Or a scoop of tender coconut ice cream.
And listen for the quiet rustle
Of pages being turned with utmost care
Or the echoes of the melodies
Played endlessly on repeat in my lair.
Look out for the places that brought me peace
And the people who made me smile
And seek me in unabashed laughter
And poetic replies.
For the day I die
My physical existence will stop being
But these are pieces of my soul
And it is in them, that I will forever remain
Alive and whole.

Of Ashes and Aspirations.

I’ve always shared a tumultuous relationship
With the visions I call my dreams
For although I pray each night
For a dreamless sleep
They somehow manage
To render my prayers futile.
They’ve showed me faces
And glimpses, of things I had and lost
Things I have that I do not need
And things I wish I’d had,
To be able to lose them, in the first place.
But lately, my dreams
Have been going up in flames
Each night a hazy blur
Of smoky clouds, obliterating all else;
I can’t help but try to look through
Those wisps of smoke, long enough
For my eyes to water, even in my sleep.
So when I looked up
What dreaming of smoke could mean
I found that it could never be a good omen
For it represents the remains
Of something that has burned
And I can’t help but beg to slightly differ
For there’s something else I have learned.
That all burning is bad, I find it hard to believe
Perhaps the smoke I dream of
Is from the embers raging within me.

Reminiscence.

The ones that love us
Never really leave us.
Their essence still lingers
In all things specific to them-
Be it their favorite table at a restaurant,
Or the sauce they always
Took second helpings of.
The shirt that was always
Their first choice of clothing
That you now wrap around yourself
When it gets too cold outside,
And the way they liked their veggies-
Broad juliennes, never too thin-
Cry out to you,
Remnants of a presence
That once dwelled
In this ghost of a house.
The hearty laughter they broke into
Still rings in your ears,
Now over WhatsApp emojis.
They still get dressed
And ask for your approval;
Only now it’s sought
Through diligently posed-for selfies.
Every so often,
You find the faint fragrance
Of their perfume
Wafting around the house,
And the carefully curated souvenirs
Brought by them from the world over
Are now just trinkets
You can’t bring yourself to throw out
For their thought still remains
Carefully preserved in them.
The watch you inherited from them
Hangs loosely around your wrist
Although it’s three links too big
And conks off unannounced,
For what it does announce at all times
Is the fact that they love you enough
To part with their favorite keepsake.
And I know at times you wonder
If letting them leave was a mistake
But you quickly realize it wasn’t,
For the ones that love us
Never really leave us;
Telltale signs of their presence
Can easily be found-
All you’ve to do, is look around.

Growing Up/Old.

My grandmother and I
Would often sit on the swing in our front porch
With an abundance of seasonal fruits in front of us
And try to eat up more of them than the other
And she’d stick her tongue out at me
Every time she outnumbered the ones I’d managed to eat.
I remember her running out, year after year
To welcome the rains
with me in tow,
Followed by my mother’s worried cries of
“Slow down, Ma” and “God, these people are insane”
Games of kabaddi, badminton, dog and bone
In our backyard, Weren’t the same without
Arguments over whose team she would be on
And even after a day of tireless play
She’d be up the next day, alive and beaming at dawn.
And one of my most vivid memories of her
Is the way her eyes would light up
Every time we were taking a walk
And we heard the alluring bell of an ice cream cart.
And every time we’d go to feed
Those monkeys that inhabited the nearby hills
She’d pull faces to match theirs
And drive them into a frenzy of chatters- screechy and shrill.
Friends and neighbors and family alike
Would go on about how she should’ve been taking care,
Telling her some rest was her urgent need
But oh, when did she ever pay heed?
Every procession, every event was incomplete
Without people pulling her coaxingly to her feet
For the way she’d dance was like there was no tomorrow
Like life had never shown her any sorrow.
And it was in moments like all these
When I traced her laughter lines
While she sang me to sleep in her soothing voice
That I was hit by the realization
That growing old may be inevitable
But growing up, is always a choice.

 

 

Beautiful?

To Sakshi ❤

There are people the word ‘beautiful’
Can endlessly be wasted on,
So much so that it loses its meaning,
And then there’s you-
For beauty doesn’t just lie
In elegant manes, and perfectly curled eyelashes
Or manicured fingernails
Or in the ability to throw around
Ginormous, cumbersome words;
Nor does beauty lie
In putting others down,
Or in a perpetually present frown.
It’s in the way eyes light up with determination
And focus turns things around.
It’s in the strife to outdo oneself
And refusal to be complacent about what you’ve found.
It lies in the absence of insecurity
In passing smiles around without reluctance.
It can be found in selfless care for others
Without expecting much in return,
And in a thousand other places
Where nobody expected to find it
But above all,
Beauty lies in being able
To see the beauty in others
And if what I say is true,
Who could be more beautiful than you?

Happy eighteenth birthday, Sakshi! Thanks for being my friend, for always telling it like it is and for doing the thankless job of editing the gibberish I write. 🙂