Author: Kanika

Mirrors, for me,
had been traveling interiors.

At 7, I look at it,
travel to lunch breaks
where my friends sit
and talk about the hot blood
and the devil’s agony in me.
I agree.
With a smile.

At 16, I look at it.
A confused face, big head
and forever rolling eyes.
Understand why they dislike me.
I travel to a still place.
I see ‘her’. Who is ‘her’?
Perhaps, someone is there with me.

At 35, I look at it.
No masks, she is touchable,
full of mercies.
Disappointments under the eyes
and within the lines of smile.
I look like my mother.
I love it.

At 80, I look at it
And I say,
I carry your tiredness, grandma;
who possessed a look of
‘Watch me while I burn you
inside out’ but fed
morsels of her heart to everyone.
It jolted me into an action and I wear grandma’s pendant.
My grandfather’s love in that pendant.
Only in the pendant.
I learn why she always wore it.

Mirrors with their dead humour strangely made my love grow stronger for the women I loved and for the woman I was failing to love through the reflection.

©kanikachugh

Sis, you become 200% attractive when you get comfortable in your skin. So, make the sound of your heels clacking worthwhile and tread forward.
Happy Women’s Day, Ladies 💖

©️kanikachugh

• 

Sometimes it’s too much to bear. This anxiety. What does it trying to tell me?? I pledged to myself that I won’t run away from my emotions but lately this promise had been really hard to keep.

And what happens when I face them— this weird sensation in my stomach, this uneasiness doesn’t tell me if something good is going to happen or bad?? I’m unsure. For me, it hadn’t been a red alert for only adversities but had encompassed its root for good things too that is bound to come my way— ruining it before it could start.

And I spent hours and hours and more hours deciphering what it’s trying to tell me. Somewhere, over the other side of bridge there is someone waiting but I know I would never cross it because I am pretty sure I will drown in the middle. First steps aren’t the problem for me but tangibility of bridges have always been unreliable for the giver. And I fall, I drown, I gasp, I cry no one comes for help. Not even the soul I saw on the other side — who, in all consciousness, still trying to make sense if I am worth saving.

It scares me. It will happen all over again. It scares me that I am going to try jump across without any fear though I am terribly scared of water (but in reality probably of staying unloved and unwanted pretending to be seasons—unbothered by anyone). I will make tresses of my hair to overcome the distance if need be knowing its going peak out the pain in my roots. But it petrifies me. This vicious cycle of mine, the result of which I never learn, the result which is non-existent. You can’t tame a wild heart, can you? maybe console for a bit while but it’s going to run on its horses again the moment you let it.

Living holding the things in cage isn’t living either. So what do you do? You let your heart run wild. With zero directions, no navigational skills and stupid bravery. And I will let it too. I fear it.

Sometimes, I fear my fearlessness.

©️kanikachugh

From where do I even start?
Talking about the cradles
that adults aren’t support to use.

Tell me how deep do
I need to dig before I
extract courage directly
from the heart of the earth using
my bare, muddy hands?

When can I rest
in the arms of
worry-less world
when stopping to
catch a breath
feels guilty?

I have a home,
an abode with all
the amenities of the world.
And I love staying there
as long as I can.
But my imagination is dying
taking away my home with it.

I wish I could find a cure,
a cure to release resentments,
a cure to procure more love,
a cure so that I never need one
because we all know
a cure is wanted only
after meeting terrible tragedies.

©kanikachugh

• 

It’s a bedspread and a hanging roof,
Thoughts when I can’t hold my head high.
A bed of thousands rough hills and
hundred ways to crush them under thin ice.
Or I just write poetry
murdering their morale
sipping ugliness from
the hem of my skirt.

Sitting across the table
they mock the way I handle my butter knife,
or the depth of my blouse,
or the unnecessary forks I never give them.
I could easily mishandle my cards
and land that flipping knife
in their soft, filthy, world-doesn’t-need gut.
I thought they were bad people.
Is it too late
for me to not be
W-I-C-K-E-D?

I just wanna have fun!
One line, two lines and then three
all I see is boundaries.
Why there is a stranger on my face?
Why there is a stranger on my legs?
You no pretty,
You burn butterflies into
ashes with you stare.
My slap on your cheek
and I am a drunk
H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E.

I sprawl across the bed
un-gently, motionless
sinking in Salem issues.
Orthodox minds and shrewdness
raises me every night.
The demonic presence in your heads,
work of evil on your tongues
incinerated fresh hopes, innocent fates,
begging hands, kissing lips
and you called us
W-I-T-C-H-E-S.

The roof hangs like a bodiless head
what does it want?
Want me to pick myself up?
Before the rage engulfs me
or be scared of a grotesque face
that makes me stay low.
But I am not afraid.
I am contemplating
fitting you in this bed box
as your forever tomb.

©kanikachugh