Why be ashamed and apologetic
about what you are?
Why try to be a fraction of your full self
to fit in the mold of others?
To gather fake sense of security,
it needs lots of explanation and effort,
By being a fraction of yourself,
you are like a fragile leaf on the ground,
lying there to be broken under others’ boots,
But by being your full self,
you become a green leaf on a high branch,
soaking sunrays,
kissing the dew,
and swaying to the free breeze.
I’d come closer by an inch
and you’d step back by a mile,
An inch of reclaim
paid with a mile of declaim,
More inches breeding more miles,
You vanishing towards the horizon,
Then gone,
Then your memories would recede
in the same proportion and manner,
That’s how time and space grow,
That’s how this cosmos expands,--
at my cost.
A mysterious longing
smolders through the day
and burns at night,
An exciting anticipation,
An unsparing desire,
The pores of your skin
humming with excitement.
A feeling of remarkable audacity,
which makes you unbothered about the
usual jostle and hustle of life,
Something looks straight into your eyes,
And you flinch, get tamed and surrender
to a gleaming, flashy star.
Your identity gets focused
in the chaos and hubbub of life,
You stand apart,
It even makes you feel proud,
even haughty,
to own this exclusive excitement,
You slyly smile,
A warmth spreads through you,
Melts the clods of uneasiness,
Overpowers your molecules of ego.
You flow,
You enter a spring,
A celebration begins,
Almost a rebirth and renewal,
You kiss the new sprouts,
You appreciate the flowers,
You feel the breeze on your skin,
Your eyes see the beauty around,
Your soul feels the all-pervading love
when your heart gets a sweet shove
at the mere look of your dearest dove.
We are basically
a very lonely species,
Loneliness pervades our being,
Maybe we love being lonely,
And to keep its bitter-sweet charm,
we allow interruption to our loneliness
through love, affection, friendship, relationships,
But we know we have to
get back to be lonely again,
We are ready to pay the costs for it,
We squander away love and friendships
to buy our next installment of loneliness.
Mostly, we are viewing ourselves
in terms of what we are not
and what we couldn’t become,
In this way,
we are simply repulsing life,
We deny our very own little reality,
our existence,
our life,
our twinkling little puddle
under the starlight,
We ignore the wild flowers
that offer consolation
if we had given them a little bit
more than a cursory look.
The conveyor belt of pain
carrying the weighty stones of despair,
The bond of happiness dry and dead,
Soul aching with sorrow, anger, even guilt,
Body’s cells colonized by fear,
Going alone and forlorn,
Feeling resentment against a world
where everyone seemed to have worked out
how to be successful and happy,
Everyone except himself.
Slowly receding from all possibilities of life,
Silently stepping into the pool of non-existence,
Taking a revenge against life
by retreating from its false promise,--
the lollipop of hope,
Presuming life had been repulsing him
by burning and charring his aspirations
not only of fame and grandeur, but even
the little things that come naturally to everyone
whether they seek these or not.
His eyes like tall arched windows,
Face like a weather-beaten, mossy stone façade,
Body like an ancient battered brick structure,
A shattered star being sucked by a black hole,
Utterly frightened of life,
while all along he imagined
himself to be scared of death,
Haunted by the feeling of being incomplete,
Full of regrets for not being able to
welcome life as one should,
And that in a way
was an invitation to death.
Regrets constantly chiming in his chest,
The chances he squandered brimming his mind,
clouding him,
turning him blind to
the options and choices that had been beckoning,
trying to draw his attention.
Now, to forget the fear of life,
he decides to die.
A suicide.
A shameful exit.
Life can be tricky,
if even about the simplest issues
you are too frisky,
Prudence is to be at ease
with situations and time,
Complications then wouldn't chime,
And days would pass like a free rhyme!
