Minakhi Misra

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.

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.