I wonder if the fairy tale,
Where mermaid turns her mermaid tail
Into two human appendage,
Which feel impaled by thousand knives
With every step of grounded stride
And every second’s idle life,
Is just a warning tale about
The pains of leaving water out
Of daily diet, getting gout.
“I’ll come to you in half an hour”,
Was what she told me every hour.
She asked me why I did not help
My mother clean the dusty shelves
And pick the fallen shiuli pods
And stitch the garlands for our gods
And check finances yet again
And clean the clogging washroom drain
And boil the cups of lemon tea
And buy some better fitting tees
And entertain that sudden guest
And join him on his scheming quest
And listen to complaints all day
And nod my head this way that way
And work and talk and eat and rest
Before arriving at my desk.
But even at this midnight hour
She tells me, “Yes, yes. Half an hour.”
So much depends on waking up
And knowing you have woken up.
It’s commomer to open eyes
To manufactured dreamy lies
Repeated everywhere you see,
Incepting deficiency.
By reinforcing shame and fear
With ads unnaturally clear,
We steal your powers to question, doubt,
Your time and space to figure out
The things you have, the things you need,
Penumbras of your growing greed.
We call this theft a service done
To help you choose our chosen one,
Thus freeing up your precious hours
That you can spend on watching stars
Who twinkle on your OLED screens
And show you all your neighbours’ dreams.
It’s okay to be scared, alone,
But not okay to overwrite
Your every single line of love
With frenzied, foolish, futile fights.
It’s okay to be full of flaws,
To feel inadequate, ashamed,
But not okay to throw away
The solemn promise you proclaimed.
It’s okay to repent at night,
To cry, submit your will, and pray,
But not okay, upon the dawn,
To not atone again today.
“A silver lining”, “brighter side,” —
The fragrances of fairy fart —
Are great for textbook moral science,
Or even fortune cookie lines,
But spare me those on Monday morns
When all I see is pending work
From people taking happy hours
A bit too early Friday last.
My mind is not a clear pond.
The shit they’ve dumped is bobbing on.
The water’s gray with moldy green.
In it, the only good I’ve seen:
A Narcissus won’t smile, but frown.
Won’t fall into himself and drown.
I’ll take your sweetened holy ash
Prescribed to me by horoscope,
To swallow what is left of me
In bitter shots of espresso.
The horseshoe ring you put on me
I’ll make my fidget spinner toy
To turn throughout my highs and lows
Or punch with when my anger boils.
The calling cards of Hindu Gods
You slip into my wallet sleeves,
I’ll use to clean my dirty nails
Or scratch under my sweaty knees.
I’ll do the things you ask of me,
But seasoned in some blasphemy.
I feel a winter creep behind
To freeze over my idle mind.
The sense of complacency’s cold.
My fluid’s turned a fragile fold,
Deceptive in its solid state,
Adept at distributed weight,
But not at concentrated stress –
Emergencies that need address.
The winter swallows autumn heat:
A fire-eater on the street
Who makes me hold my breath in awe
To only spring a summer thaw
For burning out complacency
On logs cremating urgency.
The doodles made of coloured rice,
Which marked the day of Dashami,
Awoke to find they’d wet their beds
In drizzled drops of Dashami.
The girls, who spent the previous night
On haunches with their shadows bent,
Bewailed their coloured sarees soaked
In drizzled drops of Dashami.
The boys, who bet their cash and kind
On coloured cans of handia,
Went sleeping on in roadside beds
In drizzled drops of Dashami.
No flowers bloomed, no castles rose,
No flags unfurled to ribboned pulls.
No horses ran on cardboard trails,
No princess peeked through paper veils.
I pitied all the adults then.
No book in hundred different shelves
Could make the story pop at them
The way my Chinese volumes did.
No wonder Dad was always mad
In envy of my 3D spread.
No wonder after scolding Mom
He blamed her for my childishness.
No wonder looking at my books
He shrugged and scoffed, “A pampered prince.”
No wonder he didn’t read to me
Not even once: not then, not since.
No wonder when I had to grow,
I pillaged drawers for blade and glue.
With careful cuts and careless tapes,
I made improvements to my books.
No flowers bloomed, no castles rose,
No flags unfurled to ribboned pulls.
No horses ran on cardboard trails,
No princess peeked through paper veils.
We can, with evidence, assume
The Goddess in our pooja room
Accepted the prasad we served,
But did so when no one observed.
Ejecting seeds, rejecting peels
And nibbling through the plastic seals,
The Goddess munched upon her seat
A slice of fruit, a ball of sweet.
Minakhi Misra 