Author: Minakhi Misra

You sure your gloom is coloured “blue”?
Go see yourself speak out the word.
Do lips not pucker like a kiss
You blew into the one who sits
Across you at the pizza place?
And is the exhale of the word
Less gentle than the breath you blew
Between two fingers stretching out
Their wetting, hurting, flapping eye?

They welcomed back the man and wife
Who as a boy and girl had run
With all the gold and cash they had,
And left them shameful more than sad.

They welcomed back their daughter-son
And daughter-son of daughter-son,
And in those milk-teeth smiles they sought
Recompense for the years they fought.

Except, it took a single night
Of drunken ego spouting spit
And splitting headaches morning aft
For heads to split to cycle shaft.

We watched the blood and mangled vows
Being washed by urinating cows.

A knot of sparrows hopping round
Like handful marbles overspilled.
Emotions scatter like the birds
And crystal thought solidifies.
Eureka brings an equal high
As beauty of that tweeting lot,
Because, perhaps, the both of them
Are equally endangered now.

In rains, it’s only crows who hawk
From door to door their caw and caw.
And like the women, basket-crowned,
Who will not even turn around
Before the seventh “No!” you plead,
The crows will caw and caw their need
Until you roll the seven dice
Of tempered daal and steaming rice.

They go on Sunday fishing trips,
But do not “harm” the fish they fish.
A selfie of a flapping kiss,
Then back to watery wilderness.

They say they only like the thrill
To bait, to wait, but not to kill.
They say it takes a greater skill
To trap someone with tenderness.

They’ll find us here.
No, not tonight.
You sure? They might.
No, not tonight.
Because we’re hid?
Because we’re hid.
And no one knows?
No, no one knows.
Okay.
Okay.
You sure?
I’m sure.

—

Are you asleep?
I’m here. I’m here.
They haven’t come.
They won’t tonight.
I had a dream.
It’s just a dream.
Okay.
Okay.
You sure?
I’m sure.

—

We have to go?
We have to, yes.
It’s safe in here.
Our life is there.
We slept in here.
We needed rest.
To fight again?
To fight again.
I’m scared out there.
You’re scared here too.
But here is safe.
Yes, here is safe.
So why? Why go?
To make there safe.
Coz life is there?
Coz life is there.
Okay.
Okay.
You sure?
I’m sure.

When baited, pause, recall you hold
The right of no opinion.

When taunting, pause, recall you hold
The right to no opinion.

Oppressed, recall you can’t restore
The right with no opinion.

In charge, recall you can ignore
The right in no opinion.

At first, you want to see my face –
The real face beneath the masks,
Beyond the dimpled glow I show.
But when I take them off, you know
The warts, the wrinkles, acne loud,
And give me skincare tips you use.
And then you give me makeup tips.
And when it fails to add on me
The magic touch it adds for you,
You ask me slowly, one by one,
To wear some masks to spare the hurt
My ugliness inflicts on you.
And now that I refuse to wear,
You say I don’t consider you?

Today, forget the decades lost
Somnambulating through this life.
For every year of being awake,
Let’s add a candle to this cake.

Today, forget the ones who harm,
And ones who’re only standing by.
For every year of friendships baked,
Let’s add a candle to this cake.

Today, forget the learnings lost
By turtling in and playing safe.
For every year of proud mistakes,
Let’s add a candle to this cake.

Won’t murder grant him martyrdom?
As Thomas More, he’ll be so more
In death than ever living did.
Except, he’ll mind the company.
Except, he tilts the other way.
No, not the way that Tyndale did –
Another more in death than life
For words he wrote despite Sir More.
If More and Tyndale see-saw played,
He sees no see-saw’s what he said.
He sees no seers of divine.
He sees their Words as just some words:
Bewildering, though well-refined
Through centuries of what-they-mean –
These changing immutable signs.