My mirror shows my fading youth,
My fading year of burned out heart,
My burned out poetry of love,
My loved ones gone or almost gone,
My almostness of everything.
I wipe my glasses, look again.
Behind me, bricks of history books
Remind me, “Things were even worse.”
She offered me the larger piece
Of her KitKated future dream.
I twisted off the lid from mine
And let her lick the Oreo cream.
I’m scared the year is ending soon.
I’m scared of all I haven’t done.
I’m scared I’ve squandered all I’d earned.
I’m nowhere on the map I’d drawn
Around this time the previous year,
When I was scared the year was gone.
December is the twilight where
My history repeats itself.
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.
Minakhi Misra 