In the mornings,
I see you, I meet you
we exchange some greetings
Initiate small talk and then
we both go our separate ways.
At night, I write letters to you
letters enclosing vulnerabilities
letters carrying intimacy
letters that I’ll never send
hand-written letters that
know the unapologetic, ego-less me,
letters that could have brought us together and made us laugh at 2am in the kitchen
letters in my drawer that chokes to death every night.
Again, in the morning
we see each other, do a small talk
like some religion
and I constantly chant
in the back of my mind
‘You’re not the same person I talk to
every night but oh, I so wished you were’.
And we go our separate ways.
It’s Sunday
It’s Sunday
They say it’s God’s day.
So what do we do? Make a wish?
break an old heavy habit?
take sides of countries in the comments section?
promise to floss our teeth?
inhale the sulfur of insult on a lone road?
shake December hard to shed all leaves?
bury ourselves 10 feet below to
know how it feels to be dead?
It’s Sunday, gentlemen and ladies and all
we should have expected nothing
than a rainbow every Sunday
nothing less than meeting an unknown,
kind stranger on Sunday
nothing less than life to be labelled as
Hell and Heaven as one
nothing less than the lead of a
pencil refusing to omit
nothing less than the inflicted pain
on bruised knees and not by wars
nothing less than finding peace in this chaos.
Eyes, chico!
Gosh!
The eyes reading this
looks so unsure.
Do you know what
I am sure of?
The depth, your eyes
trying to find in these 4 lines.
Remember!
Oceans too, are unsure,
uncertain of their strength.
I say this is it
You go to a thrift store
buy me a cheapest, elegant
china dish
bring it home
and break it.
I say nothing.
You borrow my bag
for the interview
and some of my experience,
then hand me the wait
but celebration to the other.
I say nothing.
I listen to your stories
all night long.
I listen to your complaints
all day long.
But you practice deafness
I say nothing.
I know the secrets
I know all the weaknesses
I play piano with
people’s trigger points, you say.
Oh, my smartness offends you
and my numbness pleases you.
Wet sweater, five Mondays,
undiscovered language, 2mm deep pocket
and a cheap whiskey—I become all
to make you miserable and say nothing.
I say this is it
©kanikachugh
Mama, what should I choose?
So what do you do
when you inherit unlimited kindness
from one parent
and an untapped rage from the other?
Summer! Did you just make me miss you?
I met you in Summer
Hell! You were Summer.
One season that I never was fond of.
I, a girl with an autumn-cold heart
drawing crude caricatures of aloofness.
Guess, which season I miss now!
We have December starting
winters approacing
And I don’t have
any fresh memories to hold onto
or the taste of your first words reviving my bones
or your warm smile to stop my shivers.
How cruel and systematic the universe has to be
to not make me meet you in every season for the first time.
Try the appreciative-perspective glasses to see clearly
Have you ever learned
how to let go of the beauty?
Turning away from the rain,
Closing down the book,
no selfie on good hair day,
skipping drinking tea,
preventing siting on the bean bag.
Since we get to do all these
so easily,
We realise these are
happy-heart moments
until snatched away.
Life in bits and beauty is really pretty.
That one November night
It’s a November night. Someone confesses their love to you. You sit back and consider all the possibilities with this person. You text your friends, telling them how sweet that person is, bragging about their kindness and the energy wealth they bring into your life.
You keep the phone down and wait by it for that person to call. You think it feels good because it is good. You think about the next haircut you’re gonna get. All the restaurants you can visit together. And then in a split of a second, in a spur of a moment your mind races back towards the similar feelings you felt before.
That happy rush, that iconic courage to risk the world for this love. And that scares the daylights out of you. You admit everything you had been feeling, the text to friends, the future plans, an urge to pushback negative and see the light—all was a way to keep your brain busy.
Because you are still scared. Terrified—of being pushed down to the ceaseless storm of heartbreak and pain. You thought you got over it but that fear never vanished, it always had been there—hiding, crawling on the floor to grab you the moment it could.
You want to feel the love again, you wish to embrace the openness of those little talks under the tree, of those shared cups of coffee, of those uncomplicated, unwrinkled emotions, of no stretch-marks timidness but you forgot.
You forgot when did the wall around the chambers of your heart skyrocketed and became impenetrable that nothing reaches you anymore. It’s sad. Really sad. When happiness is knocking at your door and you can’t scream out I DON’T KNOW HOW TO BREAK DOWN A WALL.
But try. Trying makes things possible.
©️kanikachugh
Believe it or not, we all live in the Kafkaesque world
The first time we met
we were hesitant to say Hi
We walked a bit together
on pavements coloured yellow.
You were wearing orange and I, gratitude.
The season was fall, the air was damp.
Far away someone played the piano
And we walked and walked
Liked we waltz-ed.
A world like this, a day like this
was in prayers and now in bubbles.
How I said my favourites were strawberries
How you said your favourite was Franz Kafka
We both laughed. Our eyelids happily closed
The fall is back again and
I read Metamorphosis
The helplessness, the hopelessness
the plot slipping from sad to miserable.
I sing a song with no tomorrow in it.
And It dawns on me
the meaning of the word
when you left.
You left me in a Kafkaesque world.
©kanikachugh