I suffer from a new dis-ease:
Adolescent defeatism.
The daily loss of something small
Is breaking down my confidence
Of ever risking much at all.
I gave up grapes of sweet success,
Instead to drink up daily asp.
Hormesis! Please, do grant me strength
To bear the poisons of defeat.
Embracing loss with heart and soul
Is killing killer instincts that
Could help me cut through obstacles.
I blame, instead, and shame myself.
I call myself a “Loser”, “Done”.
I shudder at the thought of work.
The operating manuals,
Those written by Perennials,
Say Fear is momentary.
At least, it’s how it’s meant to be.
A flood around the village? Run.
A tiger in the bushes? Turn.
A monkey stealing baby? Fight.
A snake around your elbow? Bite.
Your Fear comes to save your life,
Evaporates beyond the strife.
But Fear in a comfort world
Dissolves in us like teabags twirled
Throughout our plain sobrieties
To colour as anxieties
Around our simplest discomforts.
It takes us all our best efforts
To rid ourselves of remnant Fear
And make some space for thinking clear.
It doesn’t help that marketers
Deliver messages of Fear
To keep us in that danger mode,
So we can buy their latest load.
It doesn’t help that men in power
Divide us from their irovy tower
To keep us in that flighty state
To vote for them as they dictate.
We try to stay away from Fear.
We play it safe, wear masks of cheer.
But this is not sustainable.
Alternative attainable
Is learning how to live with Fear,
To make it comfortable, dear.
To drink it daily on our own,
Acquire taste, accept the burn.
To learn its texture, aftertaste,
To drink our water Fear-laced.
Which cannot put us out of ease
Can never make us fight or freeze.
But how to drink these daily Fears?
You go the things you’ve dreamt for years.
The art you’ve wanted to create.
The seeds you want to cultivate.
You cut the safety bungee cord
And make the leap on own accord.
So, when you face the other side
You see it was too magnified.
Of course, at times you’ll fail and pay
The price of throwing ease away.
But check what you are paying now
By letting Fear weight your brow.
I’m losing touch with Here and Now.
I feel my senses ossify.
I trap myself in narratives
Which paint me as the Goody Guy.
I use ’em as my Don’t-you-see.
I use ’em as my How-can-I.
I use ’em as my Like-you-would.
I’m-just-a-simple-Goody-Guy.
You come and try to help me out,
I push you back and run away.
You try to show the way to go,
I show my ass without delay.
I thank you for the time you spend.
And thank you that you come to try.
But I will not respond to you
Until I shake this Goody Guy.
If you can help me scratch my scripts,
And sit with me to hear me cry,
As everything I’ve built as walls
I decimate, then nullify,
If you can hold my naked Self,
Defenseless, mewling, scared to die,
I may consider changing now,
To rise beyond this Goody Guy.
An ocean doesn’t weigh and judge
The one to drown, the one to not.
It simply throws a loaded die
That favours Nature as a whole.
It doesn’t matter who you are.
It matters if you have a plan
To face the fate on every face
Of every ocean’s every die.
It doesn’t matter which you choose.
It matters if you choose at all
To hazard oceans in your path
Or cling to sands of passing time.
He wakes up to the fart of dawn
That crackles through his radio,
Attuned to local FM waves
That scrunch and stretch before they wake.
He takes a while to find his feet,
And then a while to find his socks,
And then a while to slipper on
Before he thup-thups to the roof.
He pulls a hand to shield his eyes,
He puts the other in a bag,
And sifts the seed between the tips
Of kishmish fingers bit by lime.
He hates the birds he daily feeds.
He hates their constant gootergoo.
He hates their carpet-bombing poop.
And yet he spreads the seed around.
He wonders if his nagging wife
Can see him through the cyclone clouds.
I like the ones who tailor cheap.
They planned for fit, not brand for show.
I like the ones without the tie.
They’re dressed for work, not pressed for air.
I like the ones with shabby sleeves.
They roll those up, not hole up cards.
I like the ones with patching thread.
They sew the holes, not throw the shirt.
I like all t-shirts, by the way.
She asks me if I love her yet.
I smile – meaning, “Let you know?”
She smiles – meaning, “Take your time.”
My insides drop the grocery.
Tomorrow is a distant past
From which I did not choose to learn.
And so, tomorrow I will err
As if it were a novelty.
He plays a method actor’s role.
Today, a victim all alone.
Tomorrow, hero on his own.
And equal parts of each, at that.
He sets the story, sets the tone,
To snatch attention – snatch it all.
It matters not how much you give:
It’s always less than he can take.
He has no sense of solid self.
His self is full of bullet holes.
His self is not my self at all,
Though I have many holes myself.
He and I are fractured twins:
Two-faced heads of a two-faced coin.
Again, again, you flip the coin,
Again, again, a drama new
Will siphon your energy pool.
Before long you will feel so drained
You’ll wonder why you feel so drained.
I wrote about my thoughts today
And thought they weren’t any good.
Oh, not the words, the thoughts themselves.
They weren’t good enough to send.
But who am I to label them?
And who’s to say that I’m right?
The thoughts that I reject, despise,
May be the thoughts that someone likes.
Or be the key to someone’s lock
They have been struggling hard to pick.
Remember all the Milnean plays
That pale before a children’s tale.
Remember who decides the fate
Of thoughts that stay and thoughts that fade.
Minakhi Misra 