Poem(2023), A Recap

1. 

A date,

Let's go to ancient libraries

We'll have a treasure hunt 

On first copies of our favorite poets

Who finds first get the chance

To recite a poem, in whispers

Looking into each other's eyes

But, Don't take that deep breath

I might kiss

Let's take our pictures, happy and crazy

We'll make postcards out of it

For our children will receive a postcard 

On their 18th birthday 

And until they start to know what love feels like

Mind you, we should save the last one for their wedding 

When we get old and Weary

Let's spoil our grand kids with our favorite cartoons

We shall play harmless pranks on our neighbors

Let's act sick to get that extra attention

(You shouldn't giggle, we'll get caught)

Don't you dare to take my last piece of cheese cake

Pull me a little more closer whenever you wake up in the middle of the night

A date, then and there, almost every day, forever.

2.

The "NO" I say is so strong 

That the words tear my throat

To reach the voice box

Then dances over my tongue

To jump it's way out

The "NO" I say is so loud

As my larynx jiggles and wiggles

To the landslide of emotions

Flowing through the arteries of my heart

The "NO" I say is so instant

That it responds to the question

A question for which I answered Yes

For years altogether until my Peace 

Died out of oppression and anger

Probably the "NO" I say is harsh 

And they explode

As it walked through traumas

Ran away from Pain

Lost many acquaintances

Treated without dignity

Even after so many attempts of a faint "YES".

Finally, my "NO" found it's way

Through thorns of insecurities

And stones of ignorance

The Way that's rebuilt with self love and care.

3.

Pain is my mother's favorite child

Loneliness is the tradition we pass upon generation

Women practice embroidery on fellow women's lips

Manliness is the Noun form of Rage

Opinions, the Monarch

When life weighs more than a universe 

Lies travel at the speed of light 

I didn't fall in love with my Pen

But poems became my comrades

When our own saliva tastes like hatred 

Our body becomes bloodshed

There lives some unfamiliar faces with familiar voices

Spreading kindness and warmth

Being the tranquility for all the silent sufferings

All of a sudden world seems a little less heavy 

Everything feels normal for a split second

And Gods have their faces

4.

Time is the weirdest companion

Regrets are often the byproducts of decisions and time.

Courage gulps away time for its growth And by the time we are courageous enough,

Time would have been completely consumed by the courage himself.

Life offers lessons but time is the teaacher

The right person at the wrong time and the wrong person at the right time

with no one when we have time and a lot of people but no time

Time is our best friend and the worst enemy. It walks, runs and flies.

It takes away moments, laughter and occasionally people.

Instead it offers memories, a better change and the peace.

Time interacts in its own different language with every single person.

Yet all we have in common is the time. Sometimes we have to walk with time, sometimes run

And sometimes fly

But remember, you can also sit with time And that makes the change.

5.

I always wondered 

What peace felt like

"The idea of belonging"

Belonging to places and persons

With the perfect and pretty friend circles

Bounded to traditions and culture

Being vulnerable and faulty(at times)

To recognize, learn and apologize

To grow along and to be included 

I am always this notorious nomad

Either thrown out or running away

From places, persons and situations

To solitude, music and books

Late nights, candles and food

In search of that "Peace" ,

The people talk about

But being killed by those million voices

Aimlessly roaming along

my own damned brain cells

Afterall my idea of belonging 

Is belonging to my own

6.

The reality of understanding 

And estimating cancels away

All the beauty that lies beneath the lies 

The burden of learning and unlearning

Takes a huge drift that wipes away the

Way we lived our entire childhood

Survival formulas bring up new solutions

That aren't really solutions but the questions

Of the next few new chapters

Anxiety isn't a foreigner anymore

It gets its green card when we turn 25

Panic runs through veins 

And questions chew the brains 

Silence adds fuel to the fire

Sadly it is the only responder

Hope is a broken glass

And life is the whiskey 

Spilled around those pieces

I am that Weary old woman

Who looks a lot younger

With a heart full of love

On a free will to die tonight

7.

I am a b**ch, I am a s##t

I am everything a girl shouldn't be

Better burn your ignorant rule book

I enjoin, you close your eyes instead of that judgemental look

Let me wrench out the respect off from your gut

I'll teach you the consent by being this sassy s**t 

I am a b**ch, I am a s##t

I am everything a girl shouldn't be

Did you burn that ignorant rule book?

Ain't I too bold for your undesired lusty look?

Learn I am not your dreams and demands

May you get to stand at the line where you are kept

Or let you learn in the hardest possible way that is finally left

I am a b**ch, I am a *lu*

Call me by any known names

But remember, am the queen in your board of chess

A queen, who don't give a damn about the discourteous King.

8.

You have been in a better place

Than you thought

You have got things that

You actually never imagined of

The rougher the path went

The stronger you advent

Your smiles didn't light up the room

But it washer away your sadness and doom

Your heart, fenced with rows of thorns

But there were softest corners with pleasant lawns

Some of your wishlist came true

Some got dissolved in the hue

But, really, disheartened by a very few

Now say infront of the mirror

You will be the woman you have always wanted to be

A drunk letter to my old self, from a 25 year old.

9.

There are days

I hold on to things so hard

And there are moments 

Where I pick myself over and over 

I often walk into the maze

As if I am the map on board 

Inbetween I sit idle and gaze

Realizing I lost the road

It's not the million routes 

But the walk mattered 

I am not the kintsugi

But the art shattered 

10.

In an instant, In my 20s, 

During a scorching summer

Ran inside my home 

With tears and palpitations

In search of that 12 year old me

Who's sensitive and beaten up

Might be sitting around the corner

Hidden and cozy

I looked everywhere, to find her

To sit with her for sometime

To tell her that words are just words

They were said and not meant

Words were out as a result of

Their own inability and frustrations 

And not because of my 12 year little girl

The words that don't define her

The words that shouldn't stay long

Like until adulthood

It doesn't have to take so much space 

That her adulthood is nothing 

But the trash can of her own childhood 

That brings tears and anxiety

Even in her 20s, 

Especially when she search for memories

To also ensure that she will be there for her

In this chaotic world

She should learn to love 

And live for her at that very age

That 12 year old me was nowhere found

When all went in vain

I ranted all these standing infront of my decades old mirror

The mirror cried a thousand tears 

11.

When it's spring again,

It's all blossoms and happiness

With all sprouting leaflets and seeds

That one maple leaf

Which held on for too long

Amidst all the rain and storms, fighting the autumn

Gets exhausted eventually 

And falls off from its tree, when it's spring again,

It's all blossoms and happiness

With all sprouting leaflets and seeds

Weary ill Mapple leaf finally falls off from its tree

Will the branch bleed?

Will the tree feel the pain?

Will the roots understand the heaviness Of this one fatigued mapple leaf?

May be it's absence might go unnoticed,

Painless, wound free and unheavy

The fragile mapple leaf that fell off from the tree

After it's longest journey of storms and rain

Finally gets some rest

Not too long, but later as a manure

Giving its life and death 

To this majestic mapple tree 

In it's spring and happiness 

12 .

Every love is another bruise

Inflicted upon the bleeding heart

With unfulfilled expectations

And overwhelming desperation

Packing it's baggage

Leaving with a whole different 

Purest possible reason 

13.

The craze for vintage radios

Intensifies as age passes

Coz its the only reminder 

Of all the retro songs

That put me asleep

Besides papa, who's in rhyme with them already

Those days, the tunes and the pauses pacify me 

Today, the lyrics, it stirs up my entire life and sleep cycle

These songs,

They hold a very special space in my heart

As it gains me back the closure 

With my young father

It takes me to the days

Where I remembered his bike sounds

And the smell of his favorite towel

Now, he is the same father who saw my every milestone

And I am the full grown adult who forgot what childhood felt like

Except for those retro songs with father

Where I felt safe and fine all along

14.

Words that creep along the callosities 

Of the moth eaten brain

Believe in the fallacy of light

Amidst all the lonely nights

The desire to succumb

Stir up the courage to exist

Angst of tomorrow

Chew up the darkness

The last few brain cells

March towards the oblivion

While lungs holding back the coldest breaths

Unfurl chills along the spine

That triggers every single neuron

To shiver and quiver 

The throat and eyes 

Outweigh every single drop of moisture

Until the hope of death

Wakes you up the next day

Anxiety attack - An episode