Minakhi Misra

I can no longer point out when
We start feeling truly lonely.

Is it when we start wearing emoticons
On our faces, as easily as makeup
And break-up with the face which reeks
For weeks, with the emotions of truth that leak out?

Or,

Is it when we measure out our friends
In the trends of green dots on chat-boxes,
Feeding the paradoxes of human contact
That impacts us through pokes and thumbs-ups on walls?

Or,

Is it when we pay more attention
To the mention of our name on some page
That says “You’re awesome”, when in real,
We don’t feel the same warmth that the sound of it gives us?

We can no longer tag the moment
that is more potent than the company
and cacophony of green dots popping
and dropping their way into our lives.
Those carefree laughs shared on swings,
Now lost in pings, cannot be replaced
By glee-faced yellow circles staring into our eyes.
Are “we” now only truly together
To weather the winter of distance,
this instance, from within our silos of solitude?

“Never corner your enemy – he will fight back.
Always give him a chance to run, so you can slash his back open.”

They always came with the setting sun,
With the winds filling their turbaned masks,
Howling the herald of a troubled night,
For the travellers never meant good news.

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