Author: Minakhi Misra

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.

She followed ants with fountain pens,
Bombarding them in ink deluge.
“I do not like them red like that” –
She took, in black, her own refuge.

They told her, “Only forty days,”
As if in forty days her veil
Could permanently blur away
The blood under her fingernail.

Won’t kill you if you talk to her.
Perhaps she knows a thing you don’t.
Perhaps she’ll tell you something real.

Despite her reels of Instagram,
Despite her kitchen whirrs and trills,
Despite her calls on speaker phone,
Perhaps she hears a thing you don’t.
Won’t kill you if you hear her out.

Perhaps you’re wrong. It happens, dude.
Won’t kill you to admit as much.
Perhaps she’ll tell you what is right.
She may not know it, but she might.
Won’t kill you if you take a chance.

Perhaps she’ll help you loosen up.
Won’t kill you to relax a bit.

Despite your poetry-tinted specs,
Despite your thousand books of facts,
Despite your love for your own words,
Perhaps you’ll never write like her.
Won’t kill you if you read her out.

Won’t kill you if you love her back.

Yo, didn’t we process all my pain?
So, why am I afraid again?
Of hugging after pandemic?
Of laughing after silent grief?
Of talking after arguments?
Of looking after documents?
Of running after ghosting goals?
Of asking after troubled souls?
And, why am I afraid of love?
Of life and every part thereof?
And, why am I still paying you?
Is anything you’re saying true?
You think I cannot heal alone?
I cannot do this on my own?
Well, what is it you say again?
I know me best? You’re fired, then.

I say, “I had a lovely dream.”
“Which colour?” is all you ever ask.
“Red,” I say. “A lovely red.”
Like fireworks lit with incense sticks.
Like phoenix cremating into birth.
Like bleeding tree barks for bleeding days.
Like potash fingers on gardening jeans.
Like breezy grass on Orangutan skin.
Like boxers spitting into the ring.
Like fried garlic peeled with bitten thumbs.
“A lovely dream indeed,” you say.

He ripened fruits with just a look.
The apple browned within the hour.
The orange challenged him a bit,
But in return, he’d take a gun,
Arrest the orange tree at noon,
And warn it with police-like shouts,
Until it dropped its fruit grenade.
He’d move in with the stealth of cats,
Inspect the bomb with army shoes,
Ensure the pin was in its place,
And pick it slowly in his hand
To turn it till he found the dent
In which the fruit had peed itself.
Securing pistol underarm,
He’d tear the rind around the bruise
And look at it with focused eyes.
The orange browned within the hour.

On shore
A wave hits her sole
Returns
Some memories sour
Of a day
A caring hand set sail
Leaving
Tapoi sore

The news arrived
“Got lost”
Somewhere in the ocean
“Waters”
Aren’t always as nice
“You”
Blamed all of them
“Get lost”
Cry, run and hide

DeepInsideTheTigerWoods
TheyTakeLikeTheSeasTake
ButSomeoneCameToHelp
TheInnocenceInHerHeart

Souls returned on Boita.

The problems solved by friends with ease
Appear large, Atlassian loads
I cannot hold, or shrug, or throw.
In loneliness of solitude
I curse the guts of Hercules
Who tricked his labour on to me.

My friends are moving mountains there,
And here I lie so paralysed.
They, Hanumaan; I, Lakshmana.
Though both the instruments of God,
Though both in service of Divine,
For now, I’m hurt, and down, and lost.

And yet I am no Aurora,
No helpless Sleeping Beauty cursed.
No true love’s kiss I need to wake.
I have with me my salvation.
And only I can call it forth.
The only thing I need to do
Is raise my voice and ask for help.

And, say, they do not come to aid,
And, say, for all my cries of help
I only get Promethean pain –
Eviscerated every day –
I’d know my dream was worth it all.
For I have stolen from the Gods
The fire burning in my eyes.
No eagle, raven, owl, or crow
Can catch and tear a dancing light.