Minakhi Misra

I’m staring at your sticky note,
“I waited hours for you today.”
I know, I know. I’m sorry, yo.
I have to clear my head today.

I’m deep inside my own behind.
I do not value what I have.
But then I fight, as if I’m right.
“I value you. I always have.”

It doesn’t matter how I feel.
It matters how I feel they feel.
And how they feel I make them feel.
And how to feel the way they feel.

You see? You see how lost I am?
I have to clear my head tonight
Before I write about the fight
And everything I feel tonight.

It’s best I eat my frogs at dawn.
I shouldn’t keep them for the end.
They slip as much, they croak as loud,
They taste as yuck, no matter when.

At dawn, at least, it will be done.
It wouldn’t weigh me down all day.
And when I’m winding down at night,
It wouldn’t steal my sleep away.

Unpleasant but important things
Should not survive my good mornings.

1.
Some commonplace hook,
Something moves away from norm –
A twist. Empty space.

2.
Racing against sleep
The poet plumbs her pathos –
Mimosa leaves fold.

3.
Solitary crow
Perches on the shoulder blades
Of lonely scarecrows.

4.
Simple gratitude:
A bitter kiss on my lips –
The coffee steams.

5.
Gifted, regifted
The book of haiku blooms –
Every page a dawn.

Incessant need to stuff my face.
Interminable hunger pangs.
Irrational insistence on
Invigorating chronic pills.

Immersed, embroiled in steaming tears
Inaction, insecurity,
Inflict internal savagery,
Inviting thoughts of impotence.

“In me, I trust,” I write again.

Here’s something to write home about:
I’ve lost the cash I’d made so far,
But gained the weight I’d lost so far.
So, pound for pound I’m even now.

When even haiku
Brakes for an intermission –
Why do I hurry?

Head tilts to the left
Burdened by a happy thought –
The rope breaks the neck.

Awake, from fevered dreams
I breathe a sigh of relief –
The nose is still, blocked.

Apologize for everything
Except when you are clearly wrong.
For then, apologies do not
Annul, amend, ameliorate
The loss that you have brought to them.

Apologize for everything
Except when you are clearly right.
For then, apologies do not
Accentuate, appreciate
The gain that you have brought to them.

It doesn’t take a genius
To find cicadas in the wild,
Erotic in the wilderness
Of Homer’s epic poetry,
Or Oriental pottery,
Or haiku strings, or prayer rings.
Tobacco boxes full of things
Are seldom void of molted shells,
The lingerie of mating bugs.

The challenge is to bring me here.
For once I’m here, I will not go.
I’ll scribble something with a pen,
I’ll twiddle something with my thumbs,
I’ll clackety-clack the qwerty keys,
And somehow verses will emerge.
But only if I’m somehow here.

It’s not so easy. Not at all.
I have a dozen reasons why
I shouldn’t, wouldn’t bring me here:
I have responsibility;
My family depends on me;
I’m wasting people’s time with this;
I’m wasting my own time with this;
I’m masturbating verbally;
I’m past the waiting patiently;
I should be taking moneyed work
Instead of scribbling wild, amok;
I’m not the talent I could be;
I’m not a latent prodigy;
I’m simply fleeing from myself,
Instead of seeking formal help;
It will not matter anyway,
No matter what I write today;
And even if these aren’t true,
I’m scared of writing something new.

And so, my task is crystal clear.
I have to somehow bring me here:
It’s okay, don’t be mad at this;
It’s okay to be bad at this;
It isn’t this that makes me sad;
It’s just the dream I’ve always had;
It isn’t clear how long I’ll live,
So why not give what I can give;
If nothing else, someone may see
There’s something to consistency;
Who knows, a worthy artist may
Decide to show up everyday;
And if I can be just that spark,
I’ll have absolved my life of dark;
And, dude, it’s just some lines of ink,
There’s nothing here to overthink.

So, get this ass on to that chair,
And share what only you can share.

They told me, “Read up Medicine,”
For all its wondrous cures and gifts,
Withholding how its errors are,
Quite literally, buried now.

They told me, “Read up History,”
To learn from errors of the past.
I did, and now I proudly make
The ones I found most glorified.

They told me, “Read Humanities,”
They told me, “Read Philosophy,”
They told me, “Read Psychology,”
Until they said, “You read too much.”

Humanities, I read, to boast;
Philosophy, to find excuse;
Psychology, to trick myself
To think I am a wise recluse.

And all the while, I died inside:
An intellectual suicide.