Poetry

August seasoned my summer with more raindrops.
I feel less incomplete,
someone with more soul.
The longing doesn’t end though
but the deep pits appear shallow.
As if August could lend a hand
and pick me up from deep valleys.
It’s not that I don’t miss July
But August, It’s preparing me
for less shame and more colors.
‘Cause soon it will be time for Fall.

©️kanikachugh

Today, I saw a kid scrawling graffiti
Well, today I caught a kid expressing
mercilessly on the walls.
What to say—
How does it feel to witness an artist in his/
her artistry form?
I always relished the idea of art in its
process instead of a polished result;
a duckling instead of a swan,
a messy color palette over gracefully-sketched canvas
a mere, timid sapling to a magnificent tree.
Any art in its raw form tells how everything starts weak, disoriented and vague.

We are a part of someone’s process as well;
Perhaps our own.
Somewhat damaged, somewhat
overpainted with layers and layers of
stories, corrections hidden beneath.
The journey of self-breaking and self-making
tainted with love and lessons
trying to reach an end goal with self-discipline
Who’s to say what to become of us…
but being the masters of our brushes
we are as unique as any fine craft
and the burnt marks on the soul
allows us a chance to make our own graffiti.

©kanikachugh

I hear Schubert’s Frühlingsglauben
and read Uhland’s poetry about
echoing their faith in Spring,
about using leftover optimism and colourfulness of Autumn,
about making the deepest valleys of heart bloom.
And I hear this as melancholia; why?
‘cause Schubert was dying when he wrote this?
‘cause he knew Spring would wander
in and out of major and minor
seemingly, meeting its end one day?
I hear it; with parched lips not cause of the
Summer’s tapestry of fire but
‘cause your lips left mine for another season,
for a better, rainless sky.

‘Have faith in spring’, they said.
It’s a wasted breath when I couldn’t convince them you were my spring.
And I used to crawl back to your heartbeat to bloom.
Oh, my poor heart, learn to live with this fear
of seasons ending
of impending danger
How could two seasons ever be together?
at the same time ?
The Cold has to die to meet the Bloom.
Wish I knew before,

Because darling, you were Spring.
And I was a cold cold winter night.

©kanikachugh

Note : On my journey of learning German I stumble upon different words and phrases everyday. I was listening to a composition by an extremely prolific composer Franz Schubert – Frühlingsglaube
which translates to Spring Faith or faith in Spring that eventually made me read Johann Ludwig Uhland’s poetry for the same composition and I was moved by the meaning of the words. Couldn’t help but write about it too in scorching summer

Preach preach preach!
People
preach
from filled pockets
and empty brains.
With unscathed heart
and untethered emotions.
Sided by parallel friends,
attentive as bread crumbs
asking to ‘just move on’.

With double skin,
houses on higher ground
preaching ‘not to drown’.

With dried pillows and
shadows never patrolling at 3am
urging ‘not to grate brains and sleep’.

If they knew Hurt
the way a burning paper
recedes in front of a matchstick.
If they knew Wound
as an unasked excavation of land
with mostly dirt and barely a treasure
If they knew Heartache
they’d would know
why some turn into wolves,
finding comfort in being
dangerous and to howl all alone;
all ’cause of the lack of help
and not to bite back the world.

©kanikachugh

Each second marks
the number of times
you thought of them today.
Yet you are 86,400 times
and a lifetime away
to make them yours.

As fascinated it is to
look at the stars
It’s terrifying to know
those are mere a collection
of dust and gas from up close.
So, when you are near them
You know—they are nothing.

Even when you move a mountain
in front of their doorway
as they like hills,
They don’t step out in their balcony
to witness the efforts of your mutilated heart.

You bring a whole garden
and spring to them but
it’s not their time
nor any intention to bloom

They peel off their skin so often,
the skin you spent years to get under
that you become a stranger
standing under the same umbrella.

A person in your imagination
is so different than in real life
and is usually the ambassador
of delivering pain to you
while you manifested Earth’s flowers for them.

You are their dream catchers.
And for them you are an occasional décor.
And you wonder what did you do wrong?

It’s cause,
people don’t love you
the way you love them.

©kanikachugh

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