Poetry

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.

• 

Switched onto the Radio
what seemed like eons ago.
All genres of music came
gushing out from that
blurred-memories beatbox.
The sound waves thumped
and clanked wearing romanticism
ironing out my silences.
Some sound pollution
curing cancers.

After the quaking of
my peppy senses
it went into an hollow
tunnel blowing echoes of
rustling-music and
I, chiming in its melody,
ignorantly compare it with the
plastic lyrics we are
fed these days
in the platter of
scarcely-claded bodies
and phony hearts.
What a brazen
attempt it was,
of writing
heart-slaughtering
brain-stopping
golden lyrics in the era before.

It played
“Bade ache lagte hain”
The curse of my good
memory suddenly appears
as a blessing with the
old songs committed
to my lips long back.
My waist sways,
lips croons,
pupils dilate
and voice purrs
along the
musical sonnets.
A safe haven
for the cry.
It brings back the
old musical wizard to
his high-pitched imagination
and I tune into
‘My Universe’
one more time.

Growth is subjective, isn’t it? Probably, like everything else in the world if we go by all the opinions. There is a tremendous pressure on growing up all the time and is usually measured on how much of a successful adult you become and yes success, most of the time, in this world refers to the size of your house (not the heart), a better car (not peace of mind), a stable job (because less money- a big no), married and kids (else you are just wasting life and are a bullheaded to have been focused on career).

This gave me all the more reason to dive into growth subsets. Growing up clearly means –

mature decisions (becoming magically decisive after crossing a certain age),
magnificent social skills (when all you did in yesteryears was to curl up in your bed with a book or favorite TV series),
an impeccable resilience (gone are the days when you used to hide your face in your mom’s bosom and miraculously problems disappeared),
extreme resourcefulness (how come you are not adding any advantage to your country or family, or relatives, job, neighbors, planet, aliens, multi-verses AT THIS AGE? How is it possible that you are not being resourceful – C’mon You are a grown-up),
an undying creativity (well, how else would you show to others you can earn and also keep a great passionate hobby in your side-pockets? How else would your younger siblings/cousins consider you a role model? That’s important too you now, to build a reputation, to see yourself from other’s eyes. Who cares what you thing about yourself?),
steely confidence (this must be a given one. You have got education; you have given presentations. The basic thing you would have learned is being confident. You can’t waver, you should be clear about your path, and you have to be ready to face your challenges on your own).

Growing up means an imbalance division of expectations. You have to have lesser than the bare minimum while the other side keeps getting heavier with every turn in life and talking about that heaviness is what is mocked off here and hence no one openly talks about.

Like, you wanted to remind your friend of the movie night you planned long ago when he/she changed the plans at the last moment adding a bitter suffix of ‘Grow-up’, making you feel smaller than ever.

“It’s natural to have change in plans. The least you can do as a friend is try an understand me and if you cannot then Grow-up!”

And what would you ever say to refute this statement? That I do not have many friends and sort of depend on you to have peaceful fun night without much drama. That it takes every ounce of my energy to prepare myself hanging out with someone who doesn’t consider me a burden. That I wish I could talk to at least one person of how weight is pulling me down and all I needed was a one good listener. Probably afterwards, I would been okay. But what you manage to say,

“I am sorry. Carry on. We will plan some other time.”

I don’t know. Is saying ‘sorry’ at the right time called growing up? And who knows what ‘the right time’ is, when it’s again subjective.

I love how we humans glorify the endings,
with a stale narrative of how those can be beautiful.

How fragile the limbs are when they freeze
in knee-covered snow upon realising that
the creepers of farewells are getting
heavier and almost touching the ground.

How plagiarized is ‘sunsets are beautiful’
because the endings are ugly and quiet
and heavy and usually dark before the dawn.

It ends.
Everything ends
or we end up leaving.
Fireflies don’t stay for long,
blessings wear off,
intimacy fades away,
hopes are swallowed by anxieties,
horizons get covered by nervous spilled-paints.
It climaxes, so it can begun again.

But we writers or artists are so loudly
consumed by our emotions that the only
way out we fabricate is to keep falling in
the circles of life till the flames of our
planet keep igniting us from its core.

I punctured
his head
with caution
and hauled out
the dripping
red heart
like a bread
freshly out
of the oven.
Strange!!
his heart
held so
much warmth
and yet
so cold.

©kanikachugh

• 

I have survived another summer.
I believe I deserve some perks
of sighting exclusive brittle skies and
extra candies of courage you
keep in your side pockets.

I adore you,
for not only being my month
but for the audacity of making
mortal surroundings around change
and to show their true colors.

Leaves fall and my fingers
camp around the handle
of a tea mug placing my bulky
thoughts on a window sill.
My poetries rhyme with
an amber view of art outside
with an orange blanket to
mourn the dead leaves.

You disclose unsullied hope
like freshly painted graffiti walls.
And I being an ardent art lover
quickly buy your bouquet of transformation.
A spectacular change I try
to stretch in my own work.
I know what a horrible
businesswoman I would make of myself.
Do I want to sell tales
and keep buying the inspiration?

Being the last third in number
you make me anxious.
Like those tragic stories of which
the end I know but watch it to
grieve their doomed sunsets before time.
And I wish not to dim blur before time,
before meeting you.
There is a bridge I cross
from January to September
praying to keep my sunsets
and moonrises sharp till
October arrives.
Probably, the only Goodbye I ever
want to bid is in the times of
thousands pumpkins, ghosts
and romances of October eve(s).

Your brownish daylight makes me
hop on a carrier to feed wanderlust.
A flaming-red dream teases and
starts dancing on the edges of my uneasiness.
Like lemon juice dominating
on the crunchy sides of my tongue
twitching away my sad pages,
and reviving my senses.

You are those Friday Nights
I don’t ever want to die away.
Beginning and ending of gold moments.
Just like you!

A picture-perfect month,
I welcome you, knowing
I survived another summer
and will do so again
because

Dear October,
your crisp beauty makes me believe in Magic.