I suffer from a new disease –
Adolescent defeatism.
The daily loss of something small
Is breaking down my confidence
Of ever risking much at all.
I gave up grapes of sweet success,
Instead to drink up daily asp.
Hormesis! Please, do grant me strength
To bear the poisons of defeat.
Embracing loss with heart and soul
Is killing killer instincts that
Could help me cut through obstacles.
I blame, instead, and shame myself.
I call myself a “Loser”, “Done”.
I shudder at the thought of work.
He’s back in school at forty-five,
Resuming after thirty years
In prisons of the State and mind,
To try and build new careers.
He sits beside the empty chairs
Which form the second row of class
For even with his drive to learn
He knows he isn’t front-row brass.
He’s back in school without an eye,
Reportedly with focus sharp
On taming inner Gyarados
Into a docile Magikarp.
He’d learned about the Pokémons
To lure the kids he later sold.
He always had the rarest cards
And rarest children, it is told.
They labeled him a psychopath.
They beat him hard in custody.
They gave him not a drop to drink
Until he drunk his yellow pee.
So, how is this detestable,
Despicable, degenerate
Allowed among the kids again
To study, score, and celebrate?
And how are parents sitting still
Without creating much uproar?
Perhaps because they do not know
He once was known as Randichor.
Perhaps because he struck a deal
To have his public records cleaned
For turning in the bigger sharks
Who ran the national traffick scene.
Perhaps because he spent some years
In many jobs in many towns
Until he made a decent name
As one who’s had his ups and downs.
Perhaps because he chose to hide
His past from school interviewers.
Perhaps because he left no trace
For mafioso pursuers.
Perhaps because the ones who know,
The ones who dogged him all these years
The NGO who caught him first,
Are choosing to believe his tears.
I scratch the itch behind the ear.
Elastic cuts into my skin
To hold the blindfold on my mouth.
The WhatsApp on the frosted glass
Assures me in the voice of God:
“ICU 2”. I see you too.
Elastic says an itch in time
Could save me nine rebirths tonight.
Do not, do not go wasting life.
A tiny pad beside the phone.
A borrowed pencil from the staff.
To rinse my words. To mince my thoughts.
Do not, do not go wasting life.
“Without a goal, you cannot score.”
But scoring’s just a fleeting store
Of social value, nothing more,
For people playing empty games.
The more you score, the more you roar
About how high above the floor
You soar until your wings are sore
So people give you empty names.
But God forbid, you get ignored,
You do not matter anymore,
Regardless of your perfect score,
You lose yourself in empty claims.
Your soul proclaims you’re up in flames.
It shames and blames you for the frames
Of Self-esteem you so deplore
You cannot stand your very core.
It’s mostly full of self-talk.
Rash talk. Trash talk.
Running-out-of-cash talk.
Freak talk. Geek talk.
What-do-I-really-seek talk.
Ditch talk. Bitch talk.
Not-ready-for-a-hitch talk.
Ink talk. Gel talk.
Will-it-even-sell talk.
PPT-Excel talk.
You-can-go-to-hell talk.
Do-you-even-care talk.
Don’t-you-even-dare talk.
Gave-me-such-a-scare talk.
This-ain’t-even-fair talk.
This-won’t-even-help talk.
Roti-sabzi self-talk.
Roti-sabzi self-talk.
Who says you have to go alone?
The route to art is fraught with friends.
They walk, have walked, will always walk
Towards the songs that beckon them.
You fail, at times, to find their paths
Because you look for crumbs of bread.
As if they want you saving them.
The crumbs have long been pigeoned off.
They seek the kernels of the Truth.
So, look instead for peanut shells.
And learn to turn them in your hand
To get a clue of whence they came.
Forget the final form of art.
Immaculate deceives the mind.
The David fails to tell you what
Was not-so-David at the time.
You think I need you for your light:
A moth in search of purpose, pride.
Shinobi worthy of a tale,
The kind Jiraiya liked to write.
I need that, yes, but that’s not all.
I also need you by my side
To be a ray of new moon night
That brakes my fatal Icarus flight.
Some days Dilemma calls on him.
It points at books of Physics, Maths.
And then at those Astrology.
It asks him how he marries both.
He shrugs and says with tempered pride:
“It keeps me humble. Keeps me safe.
Prevents my falling into traps
Of thinking Physics knows it all.
It gives me what my Math does not:
A margin to appreciate
Unknown unknowns that move our lives.”
Dilemma sees his point and nods.
It sees his desk, his smile on face:
His planets playing House on charts
While Hubble stares at finite space.
Some days it takes a lot to stir
The settled feelings in my heart.
Some days it takes only a look:
A look that tells me, “Yes, she knows.
She knows the fissures of her heart.
She knows the ants that make it home.
She knows the rains that clump the grain.
She knows she can be on her own.
And though she knows the hefty price,
She knows she’ll promptly pay it twice.”
They say she is eleven now.
Although I think she should be twelve.
It doesn’t matter what I think.
No longer do I have a claim.
It matters, though, that she is well.
That she’s again in dancing dress.
That dancing brings her friendship, joy.
And not the trauma left behind.
It matters, though, that she is loved.
Her parents seem so nice, so sweet.
They value her and give her time.
They fill her with the care she needs.
They say she likes the box of books
I sent her all those years ago.
They say she thinks she’s Gryffindor.
I think she’s right. She _is_ so brave.
They say she still has nightmares, though.
Of men with betel-juicy lips.
Of prickly beards and calloused hands.
They say she comes to them to cry.
I wish the darkness of my dreams
Could suck the darkness scarring her.
I will trade-off a thousand dreams
To gift her nights of blissful sleep.
Minakhi Misra 