Author: Kanika

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.

There would be people telling you, advising you on how to get over the darkness.

And then there will be me, not knowing how to console using stack of words knitted together but would readily be holding your hand to walk that path down with you until you feel yourself again.

I will let the night wind sing
the praises of the accident
by which we met.

I will let the sea breeze whisper
the mosaic pick-up lines
for you to piece it all together.

I had buried a forbidden shadow
of my past on the beaches
of May summer and moonlit sand long ago
that still crashes with speaking pebbles and
resurrects it at twilight to haunt me.

Today, I will let the creaking lighthouse
break the midnight-dawn to you,
to cut loose my closet secrets
before it trembles me down
like the whimsy leaves in autumn.

Today, I won’t roam
but will standstill
not in denial or
wearing crutches of tricks
but will open my heart wide
like the sea opens up
amidst the baking Sun.

Today, I will share a secret
enough to obliterate us
but I believe you’d come
back like assorted snowflakes
the moment I’ll get cold
and we will grow through all the cracks.

I’m a mere human
there is no way
I could compare
the emptiness of the sky
with mine.

I’m a mere sinner
there is no way
I could compare
the virtue of saints in Himalayas
with my devotion.

I’m a mere pawn
there is no way
I could justify
the promises of forever(s) in nature
with my untimely death.

I’m a mere girl
there is no way
I could compare
the rage of eve-teasing and disrespect
with Maa Durga’s ire.

There is no way anyone can compare as trivial as me to the vastness of Nature but it’s nature that comes down to my level to weep with me, to create a heaven underneath my feet, to fill me with enough courage to change like seasons and await what’s to come after it.

• 

That grey t-shirt you’re wearing is a pale cover of the bending sky that I could finally touch. The way it cuts in like a pie of bodice revealing youthful sternum and toned shoulders, I savor the look. The look that tells me perfection is an arrogant muse that comes out when you surrender to the art of love.

There were unfathomable standards and glaring checklists I had been weaving in the past but didn’t realize it took only a spoonful of immeasurable love and a safe home filled with buttercup kisses to make me walk on the vanilla heavens conjuring every shade of purple Sundays.

You stand there doing absolutely nothing, or probably combing your caramel hair but I am too lost to realize the actions your skillful hands are indulged in like those were, the last (a)musing night. I throw a fit in my mind against the mirror that feels a little more proud reflecting you back because sometimes, it swallows your beauty and let out a sigh of the sight that only I have a right to admire.

You turn around and catch me off-guard. I feign innocence but my acts are almost like those useless hacks we see on the internet, ninety-nine percent of the times they fail. But your demanding eyes breaks down the fort of my seclusion, laughs at my ambitious lower lip that had been cutting itself under the frontal, lazy teeth, the ones that know no other place to bury themselves while gazing at you.

What to do with this manner-less time that doesn’t know how to stop? If I could, I would wager my rest of life for this moment to run in loops. Never knew 2 PMs also could hold a charm one enjoys in an attractive evening, dressed in bold gowns of red ready to take you to the places of creamy dreams.