You slipped out through horizon’s crack,
A letter posted “From, This Place.”
And “To, Another.” Stampless. Sealed.
But “Confidential”. With a wink.
“I’ve never trusted emails, see?
You cannot count on them at all
To lose themselves along the way.”
So, May the Force misplace you, Bro.
I’ll write to you regardless, though.
I find inside an addict’s pants
A coin of steel with iron words:
“Remember you could die tonight.”
The other side: a skull and bones.
I guess this girl assumes it means
“It’s rather pointless anyway.”
And so she fucks away her days.
But then I find another coin.
Another quote insists to “Do.”
The other side: “The next right thing.”
And that is when I understand
I’m just a “thing” for her tonight.
But that’s okay. At least, I’m “right.”
My options are confusing me:
I know which one is right, which wrong.
I know which brings them peace, which war.
I know which brings me joy, which pain.
But neither seems to keep me sane.
The right brings joy, but also war.
The wrong brings pain, but also peace.
The right for me is wrong for them.
The wrong for me is right for them.
I’ve love for me, I’ve love for them.
But I’m still me, and they’re still them.
No matter how I squint my eyes
I cannot see me one of them.
Because I see a them of them.
Not him and her and ze and zir,
But them and them and them and them.
And then, I wonder how I know
The war, the peace, the joy, the pain.
And even if I know these, how
I know the right, the wrong, the sane.
I toss a coin and close my eyes,
But hear no cheer for either choice.
I roll the coin into a bowl,
And beg for mercy for my soul.
In Venus Breakfast Bakery,
As crusty loaves arise with yeast,
One hears the seven waking neighs
Of solar chariot in the east.
One sees the twinkling pentagrams
Suspended ‘cross the window sill,
As nature’s bakers rise and stretch
Their culinary chlorophyll.
There’s much in me I can unlock,
And yet I wait for Chance to knock.
But even then I ask who’s there,
And turn away from Chance’s stare.
It’s easy to excuse myself,
To cut myself some needed slack,
To blame it on a wicked world,
To cry about my knifed-up back.
It’s not so easy, however,
To own that I was wrong and weak,
To take responsibility,
To make up for my lying streak.
It’s easy though, once I accept,
To course-correct and find my way,
To stand up straight and pull my weight,
To bring some order to my day.
It’s not so easy, nonetheless,
To seek beyond expedience,
To ballast dreams with discipline,
To grow up with experience.
And that’s the goose-step ballet act –
The easy and the not so much –
That tells me what I really have –
Two grounded feet, or creaking crutch.
Today my snoring brings you sleep.
Tomorrow it will strangle you.
The things we find endearing now
Will soon become enraging too.
The goofy will seem juvenile,
The cuteness, immaturity.
The chilling, irresponsible,
The I-love-yous, a travesty.
We’ll squabble over space and time.
We’ll disagree on what we said.
We’ll sleep in different rooms, unsure
Who’ll make the bed, who’ll make the bread.
In all of this, the only thing,
Together, we can keep the same:
No matter what the outcomes are,
It’s you and I who’ll play the game.
I cannot go to sleep tonight,
I haven’t got a rhyme.
I had an easy day today,
I squandered all my time.
First, choose if it’s your game at all.
Accept its rules, if you choose it is.
Irrational, arbitrary, all of it.
Then, play it till the very end.
However hard it gets for you.
Complain not. Cry not. Quit not.
Advancement needs adversity.
New obstacles become new ways.
Make atomic progresses.
One percent better every day.
Velocity! Velocity!
Every day, velocity!
Maps were changed with lesser toil.
Order brought where Chaos reigned.
Undressed, a man undressed Empire.
Nightly ink lit daily fires.
Thousands marched for million rights.
And say your impact’s not as wide,
If all you get’s a better you,
No longer scared of being you,
Should you not call it success too?
Amidst discounted lures of “more”,
Provide me hope and health of “some”.
Remind me I am someone still,
Who someday, somewhere, somehow will
Do something somewhat awesome, blessed,
Awakened to my wholesomeness.
Minakhi Misra 