Minakhi Misra

It’s something that is imminent.
My body’s scared of something big.
My mind has not yet caught up with
These signals which my body’s picked.

My body knows it. Knows for sure.
It’s something that is imminent.
I calm myself enough to be
Prepared for changes perrmanent.

I knows it isn’t one of those
Scenarios we have rehearsed.
It’s something that is imminent.
And worse than what I think is worst.

So, how does one prepare for this?
This unpredictable event.
It’s not as if I have the time.
It’s something that is imminent.

So, every time I beat my drum,
I hear the tch of closing eyes.
A drum’s a gnawing aurally.
They want their quiet. Just like me.

But when I beat my carpets, rugs –
The ones that hold my swept-in shame –
I grab attention instantly.
They want their drama. Just like me.

You get an hour. That is all.
A single sixty-minute span.
You have to heal, to learn, to grow,
And make something that you can show.
“Yo, lookey. I created this.
It wasn’t there. It didn’t exist.
I made it happen. Made it this.”
Of course, they do not have to care.
Of course, tomorrow even you
May not be proud of what you see.
But you’ll be prouder of the “me”
You see emerging from the deep.
And that is all the cause you need
To get up daily from your sleep.

1.
The crescendo of familiar chappals
Marching with determined pace
Towards the door you haven’t latched.

2.
The Doppler Effect on your shouted name
Emerging from the other side
Of a bathroom door securely latched.

3.
The muffled whistle of a masked sigh,
Amidst the clicketty unlatching,
Of backside doors on an ambulance.

The wheels support her penguin walk.
Her bones are bending under age.
She stops, she sits, she flicks a switch.
Designer wheelchair motors on,
Reminding her of grandsons two.

Her chariots of carven wood
Had failed even to bring a smile
Upon those lips so petulant
Demanding cars remote-controlled.

The whirring motors clashed and scratched
Against each other through the day.
An FD of a lifetime’s work
Reduced in weeks to plastic trash.

The grownup twins remembered, though.
They sent their grandma costly gifts.
An FD of a minor sum
Returned a profit manifold.

And how she smiled the day she saw
The cars they bought with US cash.
As shiny as those plastic toys.
And just as fragile on the road.

By accident of paperwork
She found she was the next-of-kin
In nomination documents
Resolved in foreign embassies.

She stops, she stands, she takes support
Upon designer wheelchair arms,
And trudges on in penguin walk,
Unbending bones that hold her back.

Into the dreamless nightly sleep
I want to wander once again.
They say they know the path thereon.
They have it mapped. The whole terrain.

They need a thorough commitment.
This offer is for only those
Who can afford to leave their all:
The things they have, the friends they chose.

Of course I have no guarantee.
I may be happy. Maybe not.
I may discover what I seek,
Or find a thing I never sought.

Into the dreamless nightly sleep
I see me walking with the rest.
I see and smile and shake my head.
My dreams are beating in my chest.

She slipped away before the dawn.
He waited for her on a bike.
The only one who saw them meet
Was squatting by the lakeside drain,
His lungi wrapped around his waist,
Awaiting nature’s standup call.

He did not have his spectacles.
He did not need them anyway.
He knew the girl in mirrored dress.
He knew the boy with flowing hair.
He knew the bike with engine ticks.
He plucked his ancient Nokia
And dialled aloud some keytone beeps
That reached the girl, the boy, the bike,
Who turned to see into the dark.

The bike was first to spot and point,
The boy was next with widened eyes,
The girl had shut her own in shame –
A lifetime worth of outdoor squats
Had built her instinct pretty well.

They knew they wouldn’t get too far.
They knew they were already doomed.
She felt his muscled body shake.
He felt her shortened warming breath.
They knew they had a choice to make.
The choice that seemed to make itself
The moment they heard “Hello, saar?”

She pulled it out, he held it up,
She steadied his unsteady arm.
The phone fell down. The lungi too.
The birds went flapping in applause.
The bike was first to point the way.
The boy was next with turning wrists.
The girl had shut her eyes in fear –
A lifetime worth of indoor blood
Had not prepared her for this sight.

A day, a night, a morning went
Before they found their photographs,
In mirrored dress and flowing hair,
In papers with the heading, “Caught!”

And just when things start turning ’round,
The desperate’s despairs compound.
Another plate of iron weight
Is added to the barbell pounds.
One hauls it with Sisyphian gait,
Atlassian shoulders popping sounds,
Amidst Himalayan estates,
Around the mounds on Raavan’s grounds.
A ten-brained poet could create
Resounding stotra world-renowned,
Despite his hopelessness of state,
But what of half-brained second-rates,
Irate at being overweight
On top of being fortune-frowned?
What chance they have to formulate
Repeating, rolling, rhyming sounds
That please the dancing feet of fate
Enough to raise one off the ground?

Afraid I’ll make a fool of me
Afraid I’ll drive myself insane
Afraid I’ll see that all I do
Is self-indulgent selfish vain

Afraid I’ll show a part of me
A part I’ve shown to handful few
The few who’ve hurt me countless times
Afraid I’ll open scars anew

Afraid I’ll have anxiety
Afraid I’ll choke on what to say
Afraid I’ll be afraid throughout
Of making something good someday

The day-to-day’s what breaks your spine.
You know you’ll hold for weeks to come.
You know you’ll manage monthly cash.
You know you’ll thrive by end of year.
The day-to-day’s what breaks you down.

The hour-by-hour is not so bad,
As you’re too caught up to reflect.
The minutes on the bed awake,
Before and after sweaty sleep,
Are what afflict the day-to-day.

No wonder people take to drinks
And pills and drinks with pills in them.
You’re tempted every night to try,
But every morning heave aside
The growing heaviness of need:
The need to numb the day-to-day.