Month: October 2021

Words are like paperweights
weighing down the speeches of peace against war.

Words are the crutches of dry efforts
that hop on its rubber self to be loud.

Words are the stagnant headache that forgets
its way out and gets sewed at the lips.

Words are those identical miracles
one uses to unwrap hearts like opened palms;
ready to receive.

Words are the skin and bone of a devil
that sticks to your tongue, conflictingly, making it more flexible.

Words are those crashing dreams of a person
changing sides on his death bed; a listener he awaits.

Words are those failed bobbing of head
when you give up a thing (or person) you love the most,
in the name of sacrifices.

Words (for some) are afraid to be out
in broad day light.
Brute forces follow it
like misunderstandings,
misinterpretation and gravity
possesses them faster than anything.

Those polysyllable touch the
dust way sooner than the ears.
Words are that boldness in bones
tucked under the fragility of breath
that can prevent a heart from rusting
or ambush it for it to bleed profusely.

So, I intend to use it wisely.

I touched 30
2 years ago
this day.
Age-shaming much?
No way!!
it’s the media and ads
that live in a fearful world,
so they scare others too.
But the questions deserving
perfect eye-rolls and facepalms
always stand in a hungry queue
“Oh! You are 30 something?
you look so young.”
Someone please tell them.
“Darling, 30 is young”
“Why you aren’t getting married?”
Why, because ring in my fingers
and a toddler on my waist
is the only way
to complete me?
Sorry to have a bubble bursted
but I’m not society’s
Life planning math workbook
or biological ticking bomb
that defines my worth
by following some bully timelines.
I wore a cape of womanhood
after so many frostbitten scuffles
and relentless struggles
that now it graces my flesh and bones.
that’s quite enough to be the last
piece of my life’s puzzle.

Journey of a
timid 6-year-old
trying to identify
her father
in a star, he said
he would look it
down from there,
to becoming a woman
who saw her
mother churning herself
and tending to her lost kid
with 3 shifts under her wing;
All this unchained a treasure
I don’t ever want to part with.

My twenties
were a wastral
in terms of people
I invested in.
I let my
innocence and
ignorance turn
alarming snoozes
into blazing red flags
of friendship
that assassinated
my self-confidence.
But, now I know
leaving toxicity
while it swirl
in a whirlpool
of blame games,
is not just okay
but a sign of
strength; of not
justifying self
for the smallest things.

I am finally
In a better place
mentally, psychologically, financially
yet they want to find a manicured
other-half to see me ‘settled’.
They say the world is changing
I’d say it always changes
but on the surface
because they don’t dare dip themselves
amidst broken layers of depth,
so ignorantly, add some
‘must(s)’ in a women’s life.

I know It’s the smallest feat
but if you ask me
I am proud I got to know myself.
I know what I am now
I know what I want
My passion dances on
my eyeballs with a clear vision.
I don’t feel like that rusty
old book at the corner of the shelf
no one picks up to read, anymore.
I am that freshness
of a newly opened
pickle jar that
instantly fills the surrounding
with its aroma.
I’m now the potpourri
of self- reliance I learned
over the past years
and the kindness
I had been carrying
since the childhood.
I’m those 32 no stones left unturned
whose efforts made
people get inspired.
Believe me,
there is no expiration date
to learn something new

I have accepted the fact
It’s not easy finding
metaphors for self
while I blacken the white
pages with their praises,
accomplishments, triumphs.
But from now onwards
I’d audaciously
write about my self
because no one writes
about the writers
and I’m here to
break the wheel.

At last, if you want to
sway with yourself
listen to
“It’s hard to be a woman”
From Something in the Rain 😉
I am just attracted to that song.


©kanikachugh

Have you ever drowned in order to survive?
Ever been breathless in your placidness?
Trying to find your meaning in this lost world,
with such desparate optimism
with no concerns of tautologies or oxymorons.
But you are intentionally trapped
in a non-familiar family
under a limited sky of thoughts
with a somehow-fixed broken heart,
with silent roars,
forced choices,
like a living tablecloth
that protect stains
keeps a dull shine,
overused but not paid heed.
You are growing
towards nothing
just like Sun
rising to finally set.

To
the Azure sky that never abandons me

They asked me to use a limited space
as though my succinct style would do
justice to your illustrated beauty.
But every day, without fail,
I tilt my head, lift a gentle frame
and scoop out your cotton pieces
to save it in my ombre gallery.
I know you look back at me
when my eyes celebrate you.


from
the one who dreams of garnishing the blue yonder with words but fails.

A thought,
A random,
quarter past midnight thought.
What if we met earlier?
what if we met when we were kids?
a clean slate and a clear conscience bearers.
Not burning in Spotify hot-spots
but saving a seat in a school van.
Not caught up in turmoils of 9-5
but weaving fairy tales over sandwich lunches.
Not a seductive calling of clasping hands in malls
but a sweaty parade and you fetching water for me.
Not decorating the space with a prideful succulent
but planting a plum sapling with demure hands and azure eyes.

It slits open my heart
over a shadowed past
without its existence.
From teacups
to popcorn dates,
From Feburary winters
to Christmas knocks,
years got reduced
to illusionary hours
and woes to willful laughter.
My breakfast table,
those terrace railings,
that chair by the windowpane,
even my swaying
curtains got used to
to your touch.
Now they get anxious
in graveyard silence
like a pet waiting
for its Master
after the day ends,
only the day here
has infinite, cruel hours.

A thought knackers me.
Would we have been any different
if we met as children?
Mettlesome bull-headed(s)
who didn’t learn
there is a phrase
called ‘let-go’
May be then we
would have tried
one more time
and could
catch our hearts
mid-air before
falling and getting broken.

A thought I have
with a spring heart
around blue winters.

©kanikachugh

Your smile is a lie
and my metaphor, a hoax.
So, when the rain of your feign indignation falls
my pillared paper towns stay intact to keep us together.

Her eyes looked like unheard stories,
stories that were banished and the
palace gates that forbade her from entering.
She was a crown-less queen
but a royal full of poise.
Her wagon loaded with magic hours,
and words heavy with dragon fire.
Sky bent when she walked,
rivers roared with her touch.
The nomadic souls felt at ease
and the coldest hearts melted
in her unspoken syllables and dab speeches.
They feared her powers,
so, a dynasty was made to dissipate.
She didn’t vanish instead scattered her
warm ashes for her stars to live longer.