An open letter to a healing heart:

Have you ever met someone who was murdered in cold blood, veins popped out, death clock dancing on their head yet revived without any prayers? You meet it everyday. Your ever so beating, ever so throbbing, blazing heart.

A simple token of appreciation might not compensate the numbness, the sufferings, the cold nights it went through over the years. The chaos of silent thoughts, the endless worries in slumber-less nights have a peculiar way to putting the heart at the precipice of life where it shrinks in fear, gets paranoid over sedated emotions, stifling the insomniac doubts that it feels like bursting out and jumping off the cliff of voidness yet you find it beating hard the very next morning.

A facade to fool that you are intact with brokenness as a distant relative.

The world is a strange place. It poisons us with lies rubbing against our own lips, tricking us into the shenanigans of always(s) and forever(s) and when we start to believe this butter-coated little prisons we realise we are already trapped in now. And what cripples us, is the condition that we could fly away from all this only if our wings weren’t clipped.

Those wings are present, always there with us. But we are tormented to believe that our wings were ravaged while fighting the war and had been snatched away from us.

In those conflicts, standing at the crossroads our hearts has some humongous bravery in choosing a path called ‘moving on’ and closing the gates (a straight doorway of relapsing) of ‘closer’ whether we got it or not.

The heartbreaks, the first time you left your childhood home, moving to a school where you are lot less loved or paid attention to, witnessing the first death in the family, the first time realising you aren’t born gifted and your parents silently adore other children, betrayals from friends, family or lovers, someone else’s anger when directed to you, toxic and demotivating people around, abandonment issues, acceptability issues and a lot lot more this heart goes through.

The pain you needed to grow,
The pain you never needed to stay traumatized for years to come- the heart takes all.

It heals. It keeps on healing and sometimes they’re wounds or pain it never recovers from yet it finds a way of dealing with it everyday. Through daily chores, through menial work, through day-to-day businesses, in consistent patterns, until it finally finds a day where it rests. Gives itself a break, a vacay until the next cycle of uncertainties begins.

So, these words are dedicated to a healing heart for being so strong and brave. Pat yourself for being courageous and valiant sustaining all that you are going through. 

Let’s just say, I’m proud of the way you’re holding up lately.

Hi, it’s me. Lanny!!

I saw a fair reflection
of mine from the rearview mirror.
I was being driven away
to a place where it rains grey,
where a pale orange dawn
tosses quickly into monochromes.

I want to look back
and destroy a future
I am being taken to,
no matter how tempting
my friends made it sound.
Pastel boulevards,
lips reeking of caffeine,
constricted space in a car
and I am muffling my cries.
I had been known quite a beauty;
beauty is what gets you picked
even though the mountains of emotions
are yet to be explored.

It’s a trap
what if I am not loved
the way I had been all my life.
The music that swiveled
me around along my friends
with the sips of our favorite
beverages in the late evenings,
what if that music turns into the
vinyl records I am not
accustomed to and made
to dance on their tunes.

I am scared.
Can I even share that I am scared
without faltering the pillars
of my standard they have
perceived of me?

I am Lanny, the most beautiful doll
when I was picked from the shop
by a 12 year old, Lanna
the one who showed me
stars in a crowded street,
the one who became the best
of my friend in all these years.

She, now, reluctantly handed me down
to her younger cousin
while she being drove off
to a new mysterious place
as a godly reflection of a perfect bride.
Almost certainly
having the same thoughts
as I am, at the moment.

And I so wanted to say to Lanna
in my muted voice and a poker face
“Come back to me
if your nightmares wake you up,
if you want to run through the meadows again
wearing a light crimson frock and
seizures of childhood,
come to me for cold floor poems
we recited before dozing off.

I am Lanny, the most adored doll
And I am gonna pick you up
for as many times as possible
the way you picked only me
among the crowded toy’s shop.”

I see you

I see you
sipping coffee
adjusting to the world
pockets perfectly covering the pain
as if lyrics of an old song aren’t commited to memory.

It takes me every ounce of my strength to gulp down the discomfort and write what I had been hiding under the blanket of gutless defeats.

There had been plenty of eclipses I have been covering under the silhouette of my smile when I found being over-shadowed by my brimming fear for not raising a voice against a bully.

I hung myself like a canvas on a ruined easel and let them sketch rough, furrowed lines, painting me a filthy face. A clear reflection of theirs and I spent years accepting bullets from my mad thoughts who never stopped watching  me, like pain was what I was supposed to feel at all times.

Jealousy was like getting entangled in a string leading to a massive knot in an un-preserved, unhealthy bonds when I thought I was weaving honeyed chits and sweet letters for my friends. Their enviousness over my skin color was far more dominant than my attempts of chasing cotton clouds with them.

I, a sad coward who couldn’t cut ties for the fear of being lonely and re-living the memories of self-made prisons; from where I watched those friends painting happy towns with others yet I waited for their feet to march back to me as a last resort. The apologies that I never gave to my ignored self snowballed over time taking away my own warmth.

My fading self that was angry, sad whose simple desires were mocked, summer dreams crushed in validation,
still challenges me with the same mouth and silently judges me for my wimpiness.

Sometimes, when I am well adjusting to this world, kissing away the fine wine, running on the shores with a blended sunshine with brave, proud feet- it takes a moment to throw me back to those years when those feet tip-toed flinchingly at the thought of being abandoned.
And it says
I see you

To the parents:
Can we please normalize taking money from the daughters?

I am not sure how many of you have came across this but I am sure there will be subsequent number of daughters who would have heard at least once in their life “How can we take daughter’s money” from their parents. My only question is why do they feel uncomfortable in taking their own daughter’s money?

So, I have been brought up in a pretty gender-neutralized family where you divide the chores, where you must be equipped or aware of all the household work so you can sustain on your own if ever you get to move out of home city. My reason for asking this particular question isn’t that my income isn’t taken seriously, or I am not regarded as mature individual whom they can depend on or who is regarded as some ‘paraya dhan’ who gotta save up for some matrimonial alliance – nope, none at all. I am not look down upon my job or stopped while making any decisions related to my financials either but…. There is a big but here because if these are not the reasons then what are? Why it is only son’s responsibility to provide for the living at their vulnerable age? It’s not 19th or 20th century anymore. I so want parents to not feel burdened over taking or spending their daughter’s money.

I know how parents are, if they wished they would keep sustaining themselves for as long as possible, keeping their head high but after a certain age I believe they should just relax and have a gaga time, the time they thoroughly expended on their children but they don’t. They don’t relax at all. And taking money from their daughter when no other option left isn’t same either. It remotely feels like asking for help from an acquaintance as a last resort, when it shouldn’t be ‘asking for help’ and more of a right. I believe this should be normalized too like so many other things going on. Whether we get married or not our parents must feel it’s their right spending our money like we did while were growing up. If we needed something we always turned to them.

So, parents could you please stop shying around in spending ours, you own daughter’s, money. We want to spoil you the same way you did. We acquired good education because of you. We are making good money, thanks to you but stop fussing around the right-hand side column of the menu. Don’t feel pressurized thinking you don’t want to buy this outfit because it’s too expensive, because ‘my daughter works too hard for it and I can’t just waste her money’ – No, please stop. We love to buy things for you, love to buy presents for you and not just as formality; we love to spend for household expenses too. That gives another sense of equality to us. We are capable enough of sharing responsibilities and mature enough to understand how it shouldn’t be only son’s duty.

Dear Parents,
Hope you understand.

And no mom, I wasn’t arguing again 🙁 😛

Rains

Finally I hear the compositions
rain produce with the ground.
Both, vivid and vague is the
backdrop sound that
floats freely into my ears
then to heart;
ever so serene
ever so dramatic.
And I puff up being unable
to stop swaying along the melody.

Somewhere far far away
a tree was uprooted,
a landmass moved down,
a boulder stormed up,
witnessing the winds
being gutsy;
meeting with the ground too.
Crushing anything and everything in its way.
The rains conquer the mundane roads
devouring all like a parched soul.

We click pictures of blossoming skies,
they are clicked for their lands when filled with floods.

So much so for two sides of a story.

Knock Knock!!

There was a knock at the door. At sharp 1 AM. Everyday, without fail. Like someone awfully aggressive to come inside. I was rejoicing in the perks of living alone but few hair-raising moments petrified me.

Sometimes I felt I kept a certain object at a different place but it turned out to be in another room and astonishingly I had a hazy memory of going there. I couldn’t recall as if it was wiped out of my memory. But I always had been too busy to indulge in this. So, tried brushing it off before retiring at night.
Then always at the same time I hear the knock and my eyes would flutter open in shock. Afterwards, the knocks would just fade away. I concluded it to be our new neighbor pulling pranks at the midnight. Dimwits!


Terror occupied me when on the next night the sound awoke me ruthlessly. That’s when I realized someone was touching my back while I was lying on my bed. I usually slept on my side keeping a folded left arm below my head. I could feel how the fingers contorted inwardly, moving in a gesture to poke someone. The way one knocks. I gulped. It was never the door. It always had been my back where someone kept poking their fingers at me. I bolted up in fright.
It repeated for few days. Seemed like I was dreaming about it but was too vivid to be a dream.


I called my friend to stay with me. At night when we were discussing and I told where I felt the touch she saw there were bruises all over my back. We both had mini heart attack and were trembling in fear. That’s when she proposed to pack my bags and leave this place tomorrow itself. Not remember when we both drifted off. Then it happened again and it was only 10 o clock. The knocking started.
I scolded my friend not to joke around and nearly yelled after it happened for 4 times. She answered me back from the bathroom saying she will back in a minute and can’t hear me properly.


I froze. I couldn’t turn. I never felt the touch while being wide awake. Suddenly the touch was replaced by a warm breath on my back. Someone was too close. And then it snarled at me like it carried a lot of hatred towards me. I started crying and yelling for help. Suddenly I sensed warm breaths covering my back to the ankles. THERE IS MORE THAN ONE.
I turned around and

.

.

.
(I love your imagination, Guys!)

Me to my Poem

I wanna finish you
in a way
that satisfies my soul.
I wanna give you a shape
of reality
that builds a massive history.
I wanna make
you a rebel
the most can relate.
I don’t want you
to stop at
rains
Or heartbeats.

You have to outlive me.

K

I am quiet. I am a lover. I, unquestionably
romance with life. I want to fight back
and vent when I am lending my ear.
I’m grateful for every day tapping
on my shoulder so, I choose to
forgive but never forget. With
every passing pain the only
friend I found was that
sword that defeated
my fears with its
ink and made
my hidden
scars
surrender to
mighty poems.
But I have learned
how to be in control.
I have mastered the skill
how to carry the weights of
my words along my fat dreams.
I am growing each day, conquering
every minute. I reign by being kind to self,
not letting verses of grief drown me anymore.
A writer is born and I’ll turn it into a greater one.

The ‘K’ in my name stands for a ‘Knight’.
(If we go by the trend) 😉