Mirror, mirror on the wall,
tell me I’m the prettiest of them all,
tell me I’m witty, tell me I’m wise, tell me I’m all things nice,
tell me I forgive quickly, tell me I get over my anguish in a trice,
tell me I’m one of a kind, tell me the world is kind,
tell me we’re all a family, a unit; tell me we all walk together so nobody is ever left behind,
tell me there’s merit in keeping my head down and trudging along,
tell me there’s merit in hoping, in persevering, in trying hard to belong,
tell me I’m content, tell me I don’t feel less than, tell me I’m great stuff,
tell me — in the eyes of the world — I’m competent, I’m smart, I’m truly enough,
tell me I’m the goddamn prize, tell me the universe expands every day just to be my ally,
go ahead, muster up that courage and lie,
and let me float on the cloud for a while,
because reality, my friend, often leaves me high and dry.
Annapurani Vaidyanathan
A wall of ice
Perfunctory calls, customary messages. Anything beyond, causes unnecessary duress. Sure, we’re bound together by family, by ancestral ties. But it’s now metamorphosed into an equation we no longer recognize.
We never feel at home with each other, there’s a facade that envelopes our conversations. There’s a forced politeness, a pretense that overrides our actions.
We don’t miss each other’s company, because, hey, we never had much of it anyway. We don’t cherish our time together, maybe that’s why, the memories I have of us are always in disarray.
We don’t take liberties with each other, we remember each other’s birthdays based on calendar reminders, heck, we’re mere upgrades from a stranger. We don’t share our failures, our fears, our flaws, we’re just too uneasy in each other’s presence to discuss our thoughts.
You and I, we belong in worlds that are passing trains, parallel plains; we may share a meal, a hello-hi, but we’ll never be each other’s ally.
Because we’ve gotten used to each other’s silence, we’re okay with our absence filling the void, we’re comfortable with our ballooning aloofness.
Blood may be thicker than water, but it’s definitely thinner than the wall of ice we’ve built between us.
Annapurani Vaidyanathan
I wish writing poetry was easy
As easy as waking up each morning,
and wondering where my life is heading,
Or staring at the wall for hours together because my nerve cells are stuck –
They’ve a hundred and three decisions to make and they don’t know what to go with, next,
Or waking up in the middle of the night,
Startled and scared and leaping out of my skin in fright,
Because the ghosts of the past and the future think that’s the best time for me to think things through and set them right.
I wish writing poetry was easy,
because then, maybe, I can do it every day without feeling drained and hollow and empty.
I wish writing poetry was easy,
so I don’t have to pretend my feelings are eternally happy and sunny,
so my verses don’t always have to sound elegant and pretty,
so my vocabulary becomes large enough to house the hopes of everybody.
I wish writing poetry was easy,
so someday, somebody — out of the blue — reads it and walks up to me and says it’s also their story.
Annapurani Vaidyanathan
If I’m 60% water, then 40% is
a casket that has dreams bigger than the universe / anxiety that makes me eternally terse / a specimen with a dozen butterfingers and two left feet / an overarching impulse to please / self-doubt that drags me thirty steps back for every step forward / a restless mind that’s perpetually panicking, hot and bothered / willpower that pushes one foot in front of the other and helps me survive / a kaleidoscope of ideas that are itching to come alive / a skeptic, on the fence about believing in miracles and luck and becoming a believer / a pessimist, who’s always on the lookout for more milestones to conquer / a three-year old who perennially believes the world is her oyster.
Annapurani Vaidyanathan
Their wish ain’t your command
There will always be a tear, a blot, a gap, a pitstop. There will always be knots to untie and problems to solve.
And then, there will always be thingamabobs who wouldn’t care a jot, but will claim that you could’ve done a much better job.
Yet, their opinions will always take precedence over yours. And it is because of them that you’d let your dreams take a million detours.
Why, oh why do you want to define your worth based on their attitudes? Why do you always desperately want to read their faces and their moods?
Why do you want to read into their smiles, why do you want to read between the lines, why do you want to find meaning in their emoticons? Why do you search for commas after their full stops, when you know their sentences ain’t going to be oxymorons?
Why do you want to get yourself walked all over and then drown in despair?
Get over them. Move on. Their displeasure ain’t yours to repair.
Annapurani Vaidyanathan
How do you believe there’s light at the end of the tunnel, how do you stay positive
when everything around you screams “What if?”?
when, all your life, you’ve been told to build a backup for your backup?
when you’ve only known to accept and live with changes abrupt?
when you’ve been taught to not believe in luck, in promises, in chances and the risks they imbue?
when you just don’t know how to rely on anybody else but you?
when you’ve grown up learning that life has no time for whimsy,
that life isn’t what the movies show it to be, that reality indeed is a pretty different story?
when you’ve been up most nights of your time on earth wondering what went wrong and why nothing came about as planned,
what shot does optimism, does that sliver of silver lining really stand?
Annapurani Vaidyanathan
Feelings I never want to let go of
Butterflies in my stomach at seizing an opportunity I set my heart on / A night of sleep with all my worries gone / Anticipation that builds up as I see my dream becoming a reality / Spending an evening, uninterrupted, reading the works of Agatha Christie / Getting a whiff of the newspaper that’s fresh off the press, with the ink still new / Finding that light to keep me going even when the rest of my world is askew / Walking into the decade-old bookstore at the corner of the street and going crazy / Making the library my home and reading as many books as the day will allow me / Scribbling away words and thoughts every now and then in my diary, and watching them magically take the form of poetry.
Annapurani Vaidyanathan
To Uthra
On her birthday,
To the star that always remembers to brighten everyone’s day.
I’ll always be in awe of
How you find the strength to wake up and keep going every day, no matter how dark and dreary the night.
Your energy, your patience, your willpower and how you always find the courage to trudge along until everything’s alright.
How you don’t let your worries weigh anybody else down.
How you’re selfless and put our asks always before your own, and irrespective of when we need you, you’re always determined to be around.
How you’re so fiercely, so inexplicably kind.
How you never judge and always choose to leave your ego behind.
How you’re always ready to let go and be forgiving.
How you always remember to cherish the good things and look for silver linings.
How you’re okay to step back and let others take the shine.
How you always love to use only what’s mine (anything that belongs to me is yours to keep, but may you always be the owner of infinite smiles).
Annapurani Vaidyanathan
This too shall pass
Impending Monday mornings that put you in the shoes of Tom Sawyer and fill your heart with an inexplicable uneasiness and dread / Worry lines — over doubts of not being enough — flooding your forehead / Rage at not getting what you had worked hard for / Anxiety twisting your insides and making you wonder if you’ll ever be on par / A sweeping sense of disappointment that eats away at your dreams and your hope / Insecurity and the ghosts of imposter syndrome forcing you to tread on a tightrope / Anger on being torn apart just when you pieced yourself together, forcing you to wonder if life will always be unkind / Regret — still fresh from twenty years ago — not letting you leave the past behind.
Annapurani Vaidyanathan
I’m sorry, but flowers are not overrated
Okay, so they wilt and die. And yes, they’re a tad too fragile; they’re not cacti. But flowers do try.
They try to fill any room they enter with color and light and all feelings nice. They remind you of the difference the little things can bring about in a trice.
They transform an uneventful, ordinary moment into a luxury. They bring alive fond memories. They take you back in time and help you relive the joy you’d probably forgotten over the years. They give meaning to small, thoughtful gestures.
They let you know that somebody is thinking of you. They help you realize that you’re worth the good things too.
But, over everything else, you always see them in their true colors; they don’t call themselves rainbows and show up as thundershowers.
Annapurani Vaidyanathan
Emotions That Matter. 