Minakhi Misra

The greater is the miracle,
The greater is the sacrifice.
And yet, it is the easiest
To pay without a second thought.

I trust my future me with this.
He’ll handle it. I know he will.
Today, it is for present me
To do whatever can be done.

Is there a way to sway a man
Who no more wants to be alive?
Who uses last of what he has
To push us all away from him?
Who tries to paint himself as one
We’ll all be glad to be without?
If there’s a way, I need it now.

The Now is two-point-five secs long.
That’s twenty-four nows per minute, rough.
Like twenty-four hours in a standard day,
Except I sleep so differently.
It’s one-third here, but two-thirds there.
The third that’s here is one not there.
I’m thinking of the now just now,
‘Cause thinking of the day, I’m lost.
The days of day-by-day are gone.
It’s now-by-now from now on, now.

He’s thinned so much in past two weeks,
Professors of anatomy
Arrive with clueless student groups
To watch him as he chews his food,
Or as he gets down from his bed,
Or as he simply takes a breath.
With chewed-in pencil magic wands
The students trace his moving bones,
His moving muscles, veins and nerves,
Ignoring his bewildered eyes,
Ignoring all the rest of us.

We’ve stopped protesting anymore.
We simply wave our ice-cream sticks,
The ones they bring for mixing tea,
And when some hapless student frowns,
We simply smile “Ignore us” smiles –
The ones the profs have taught us well.

They’ve pricked his veins so many times
No longer any blood comes out.
New nurses come and scold the old,
And take things into their own gloves,
To fail at what they scolded for.
The old ones roll their eyes at them.
The new ones frown apologies.
We simply stare, and stare, and stare.
And afterwards, we glare and glare
At their retreating netted buns,
As we replace the cooling pack
That helps to keep the swelling down.

Sometimes I manifest the worst
By simply planning for the worst.
Kayakers drown in eddies they
So frantically swerve away.
The hours of sirened ambulance
And hours of silent turbulence
I charted out have come to pass.
Will all the other index cards
Start falling down as house of cards.

I woke to whitewashed greenery.

I slid the glass, I rubbed my eyes,
I squinted into unibrow:
A whitewashed greenery it was.
Or rather, graywashed? Anyhow.

I wasn’t dreaming, that’s for sure.
You see, I had my pants on me.
I wasn’t dead. Unless the dead
Awake to pressure of their pee.

I shrugged and said my “C’est la vie”.
My “Life is like that only” line.
And as the lazy sun awoke,
I nodded to its absent shine.

Some things are clear only with time.

No time there is to write today.
No point there is to write today.
You always write, so write today.
You write, though there’s no light today.

The drums were at the heart of war.
Two raging bulls were sacrificed
To Mother Goddess day before.
Their skins were dried, and dyed, and stretched
Within the span of single day
And now they pumped the blood for war.

They quickened to the marching pace.
They loudened to the flank attacks.
They deepened to the fallen friends.
They quietened to the fallen flag.

Two raging bulls were sacrificed
To Mother Goddess yet again.
The rebels did not want to risk
The wrath of such capricious powers.
Their skins were dried, and dyed, and stretched
Across a span of twenty days
And now they hung from ramparts tall,
Engraved with bloodied stylus pens,
Enumerating “Human Rights”
The usurpers would guarantee.

No wonder their republic humped
On backs of voiceless, blameless bulls,
Was overturned within the year
By choiceless, shameless rebels new.
And so went on for centuries
The practice of beheading bulls.
And now remains no fort, no walls,
Except the Mother Goddess foot
That stamps the fallen bullock heads.

I am enough the way I am.
I’m peaceful, present, satisfied.
Or am I just complacent now?
Am I okay with how I am?
Of course, I can be so much more.
I’m far from my potential still.
I’ll start to push a little more.
To push beyond my limits now.
A little harder, little more.
They’ll understand my need to push.
They won’t be happy if I’m not.
Why can’t they simply leave me be?
What’s wrong with them?!!
What’s wrong with me?
It’s me who’s been ignoring them.
It’s me who’s pushed them far away.
I have to make some time for them.
Perhaps, remove some things I do.
Not just for them, but also me.
This “not enough” is killing me.
I am enough the way I am.