Poetry

How to
not be stupid
on 19th of that month
with thumb caressing
on that rectangular box
making lover out of a contact number,
ears thirsty for that voice
and eyes red as a bride
whose groom forgot to visit her.

Go easy on yourself
and smell fresh flowers again
and this time, without them around,
in the same coffee shop,
on 19th, when you first met them

How to
not be blue
at 1 am, after work
when they are winning the world
and you sit at the corner of your sofa
shrinking your bones into yourself
grating your muscles over rough presentations
loaning your smile to your future self
in a hope, your decades-after self
would smile more and probably, live more.
because that’s how hope works
for future, not for now.

I’d say give up hope
and take hold of the living substance in you, now.
It’s either mascara in your eyes
or pain. Don’t let both reside
and live a smudged life,
understood by none
not even by yourself.

How to
quit quickly
those seeds that you grew but
somebody acquired the land,
the mouths that you fed
but now take pride peeling you behind your back,
the walls wherein you wanted to melt yourself
but felt so cold, and so distant, and suicidal
that your home became the cauldron
and you the red meat.

Leave the city. Move to a new place.
Grow a plant, grow your hair,
place your happy feet
among plums and not homicides.
Where the air is white
and the Sun thickens your skin.
Where your echoes praise you
and your blood doesn’t betray you.
Where you fix yourself like a god
and nurse your broken wings like a goddess.

©kanikachugh

You still burn within me
with your cold stare
and hot departure.

You let November
unleash on me
manipulating
my October-lover
to leave, just like you did.

The moment I accepted
November in my arms
it was time for it to part.

How do you do that?
Keep people in your shade
and abandon right before
the Sun is beating down on us.

©kanikachugh

Nights make me wonder
If I did what I was meant to.

Did I read another page of that book?
Did I take good care of my plants?
Did I figure out how to complete an assigned task?
Did I cook something special for my people?
Did I spend enough time with them?
Did I make them laugh?
Did I kiss them goodnight?
Did I forgive someone without being apologized to?
Did I try to fix my mistakes?
Was I humble enough?
Was I human enough?

Nights make me wonder
did I achieve everything I was
meant to, today?
Time is gonna slip by
and I might not be able to
do these again.

Because when I do,
I sleep peacefully.

I have been growing hope in the backyard
and green ice cubes of algae
for my half-brewed liquor of anger.
The growth of hope-saplings is subjective.
The saint that lives inside the closed-door
sometimes goes on rampant, destroying the crops.

I visit the nearby bar cussing.
Words out of my mouth like cigarette smokes
insignificant but displeasing.

The man at the corner table
gently shakes his whiskey glass
and harshly condemns the politicians,
the sacrifices charade,
the size-zeros, the dead and
even his drink for not being bitter enough.

“Toxicity is like raw metaphors
when you don’t find it,
your brain creates one” he says.
I hate what he says
and I hate more because I agree.
He is brutally honest about a thing or two.

For once I feel it’s better to be
with honest people at least we are aware
they can be destructive most of the time.
But it’s just a thought;
once you face the brutality every day
you’d run for the hills.

Everyone is toxic
and the reason you keep
growing hope so close, is so
you can catapult the poison out
through the patio,
one day at a time.

©kanikachugh

It’s been so long
I looked at the night sky
and let it pamper me with
chilly attention and
listening stars.

I missed your glow.
I missed my glow
looking at you
from a distance
to be my favourite hideout.

Prove it, you are only here to suggest
some furniture and to add new music
to my playlists.
Promise me, you aren’t here to get
under my skin, and crawl up through
the veins to reach for the most
enamoured red object I’ve been
bestowed with; skillfully stored
in some assembled set of bones.

Because honey, if you intend to
steal this heart, better be prepared
to replace it with yours.
I deal with perfected business trades
because the loses incurred are beyond repair.

A heart snatched without a barter system,
usually ends up at the door step.
Returned but not at the right place.

And then I’d have to place it in an icebox of
tears just to keep it functioning.
And when you’d ask me about the
box I’d have to pretend a smile to
say it belongs to my friend.

As if loving someone had always
been such an embarrassment
that people died for it in vain.

I know I’d develop a void freely
floating in a stream of lost dreams
that would flow along my blood
sometimes, paralyzing my whole body 
and forcing me to stare at the tasteless fan
hanging from a reluctant roof 
at 3am and 253rd poem in your name.

Swear it on me
you are only here
to create some
new fancy ideas for snacks
and not
the memories.

©kanikachugh

• 

Words are like paperweights
weighing down the speeches of peace against war.

Words are the crutches of dry efforts
that hop on its rubber self to be loud.

Words are the stagnant headache that forgets
its way out and gets sewed at the lips.

Words are those identical miracles
one uses to unwrap hearts like opened palms;
ready to receive.

Words are the skin and bone of a devil
that sticks to your tongue, conflictingly, making it more flexible.

Words are those crashing dreams of a person
changing sides on his death bed; a listener he awaits.

Words are those failed bobbing of head
when you give up a thing (or person) you love the most,
in the name of sacrifices.

Words (for some) are afraid to be out
in broad day light.
Brute forces follow it
like misunderstandings,
misinterpretation and gravity
possesses them faster than anything.

Those polysyllable touch the
dust way sooner than the ears.

Words are that boldness in bones
tucked under the fragility of breath
that can prevent a heart from rusting
or ambush it for it to bleed profusely.

So, I intend to use it wisely.

Nobody tells you goodbyes are contagious.
You don’t want it but eventually, it gets you.
You catch a cold. You never wanted it in the first place but you finally embrace it, calling it a sick day and resting it out. Pulling a blanket over your head and leaving the world for tomorrow to deal with.

When you start learning there is a phrase that can get people rid of you, and you of some by dropping frosty flakes of texts or whizz of parting through stone-cold faces, or sometimes with no preamble at all, you realise it’s just a beginning. It goes from one to another.

There are going to be many farewells; willingly or unwillingly and you’d take a day off, pull a blanket of smile over your face and talk to your colleague complaining about the headache you can’t talk much about and probably, will see them tomorrow or the day after.


©kanikachugh

• 

I pick up my blanket.
I fold it in the neatest layers.
A corner peeks out.
I cuss at it.
The alleged reason for of all my frustration.
I fold it again.
Elegantly like I am being watched.
With soft hands as though
draping an infant.
I pour some tea from disheveled
kettle with lilies painted on it
similar to what my mother used to paint
but with a better sense
and an artistic thing, you know.
The one where you give an apple to them
and they charm you into thinking you entered orchards.
Then appreciating their own work with a raised eyebrow.

An artist who knows his/her
imagination knows no bounds
and isn’t held back by anything
is oh, so tempting.

I remove stain from
the shoes that ever goes out.
And yell at bees claiming
my fruits as their sweet jelly occasions.
Why do I do it?
I ask my shallow self.
She says I fall in love too easily
and fall out way sooner.
The souls roaming around
possessed by the clock-spirits
wear a band with a dial
and say they don’t have time to
romance with life like I do.

The first time I held my
vintage kettle from a flea shop
I was reminded of my cheap taste.
The time I conversed with a bee
hovering around, mystifying me
I was abhorred for living too much
in my dreamland.

So currently, I am living
in the time where I have fallen out of everything.
Like everyone else.
But I don’t give in easily too,
like everyone else.

I cook.
I clean.
Make myself some beguiling pasta
Slip into my revolting shorts
and switch on a motion picture
with trumpets and violins as my guards
against reality no one knows how to cope with.
I slowly drift into the intellectual arms of
great writers and artists.
Kissing away the manly lines
dancing through picturesque alleys
and falling in love with the existence
of mine, of theirs.

I knew what had happened to me.
I don’t do well without love.

©kanikachugh

• 

Make way for your scooped ice-creams
and travel tickets to the farther lands.
Pluck the prettiest arrow
and unleash it on your bulging dreams.
Take chances rather trembling,
capture portraits of the strays,
open eyes in the salty water,
wear bikinis in June,
drink sherbet in winters.

The sinners in the world
would anchor you down,
The inflammation in your heart
will put you under the casket.
They make you feel the need for wheelchairs
but you got to stand straight up on your feet.

Prepare to wear your dark bad-ass glasses
befriend the black cats, defy the 13(s),
move away from half-real people.
Map out your steps
bite back the distress
and have no mercy
for the dead past.

November is hovering over
like mistletoe on Halloween.
Kiss the one you love the most,
make love to what sparkles your eyes,
hold a book, wear the skin of the
character you like.
But, don’t let go of your dreams.