Of Broken Homes And Broken minds

There is a daughter

In her mid-teens

Too young

Too broken.

She finds peace in graveyards

Reading pain

Carved on her skin

To those unknown graves.

She knows how achingly peaceful

It is to be dead.

Somedays, she places a withered rose

On one of them

And leaves behind a poetry

Crafted of cigarettes and blood.

Too young

Too broken

But already addicted to

Maybe smoking pain and

Retaining hurt. 

She is my mind.

There is a father

Who works himself 

Up too fast

He is always out of breath

From all the dust 

And dirt 

He eats.

His fingernails are bitten 

By the fear of the future

His stomach

Was tied into a knot

And forgotten in place

By mistakes of a wretched past.

He comes home every evening

Drunk

Beaten down by life

And beats up his wife

Then sleeps on the couch

With his stinky shoes on.

He is my anxiety.

There is a mother

She never smiles

And when she does

Her eyes

Still, serenade unfinished

Sad songs about unrequited love,

Unrequited self-love.

She wears a tattered old saree 

And refuses to change

Into a new one.

She fears new

She fears joy.

She once loved cooking

But now refuses to

Cook for her daughter.

She is always looking out the window

Looking into the dark sky

Occasionally scoffing at bright stars

Wishing the dark would engulf her

Just anytime.

She refuses to live.

She refuses to die.

She is my depression.

She refuses to try.

There is a home

It houses this family

Broken and distort

The house reeks of 

Burnt flesh

And maybe hope

That got rotten somehow.

The couple sometimes dance

To slow melancholic tunes

But mostly they quarrel

Banging utensils 

And slamming doors.

It is chaotic in here

It is dead

No wonder the daughter

Finds solace in graves.

There is a home

Broken and distort

In a drought-stricken field

With a red raging sky

There is an isolated home 

That has no visitors 

There is a home.

It is me.