Thank you, April!

You collect thoughts that melt into a pool of nothingness,
Whisk them into a song that lilts in effervescence
To the tune of the voices muffled inside my head,
Gently tucking with it, a million emotions that lie beneath, unexpressed,

You breathe life into the shadows that lurk in a corner of my brain,
Bringing to light an identity I’d choose to curtain,

You give shape, to the hesitation crawling under my skin,
To the heart that’s enveloped in insurmountable chagrin,

You diffuse strength and warmth and hope into my spine,
Colouring my sky with fairy dust and rainbows and stellar sunshine,

Thank you, April, for stringing my words into poetry,
For magnanimously containing my profound insanity.

Cheers!

❤

An ode to the firstborns.

You come into the world anticipating sweet nothings, but before you know it, you are marred by expectations aplenty –

From your parents, from your cousins, from almost everyone short of the Prime Minister of the country,

You are expected to become the role model the world is yet to see,
One mistake, and you are paraded through the streets to show your siblings what they shouldn’t grow up to be,

Your mischief is looked down upon; you don’t get any sympathy,
You are required to be strong, your shoulders can’t be weighed down by responsibility,

You are envisioned to be an example par excellence, for, in the eyes of the world you are a human that’s been chiseled to perfection,

You can’t break any rule in the book, because hey, you are trained to be looked up to as an epitome of goodness that needs no introspection,

There’s more – you test the waters of the tempestuous seas, you clear the boulders that lie in your wake –
Just so, for the ones that come after you, the ensuing road becomes a piece of cake,

I could go on and on, for the struggle here is real,
Being a firstborn is, trust me, one true ordeal.

❤

What would I choose?

A friend once asked me in jest – if I’d like to peek into the future or relive my past,
I jumped at the question and chose the latter, because there’s so much I’d want to go back and change;
I know not what the future holds in store, I’d rather let the suspense remain,
But there’s so much regret I carry in my heart, there’s so much of the past crowding my present, clotting my brain, not letting me breathe that, I’m reminded –

Of the ruptured conversations, of the punctured silences, of the unfinished sentences,
Of the hasty decisions, of the empty spaces, of the moments of incomprehensible agony,

Of the chaos; Of how often I drowned in them, Of how they’ve become an inseparable part of my identity now,

I’m reminded of my failures, of how easily they still manage to trace their way back into my dwindling solitude –

A gush of air, smelling of salt and the sea flurries into my brain,
And I’m gently reminded of those tiny moments of inexplicable joy I’d give anything, to relive again.

It’s all going to be okay…

The questions will keep coming, no matter how old you grow, no matter where in the world you are, no matter what you choose to do,
They’ll keep churning out fear in the pit of your stomach, pushing you to doubt your reasons to pursue what your heart tells you to,

You might set tongues wagging for your persisting eccentricity, for the wind beneath your wings,
You might invite opinions grainy with resentment, rustic with envy, opinions that glare at your shortcomings,

You might be laughed upon for the choices you make, you might not be looked up at,
You might be coerced into changing the path you choose to tread,

The dreams you give your all to realise, might even take an eternity to see the light of the day,

But don’t give up just yet, because in the end, it is all going to be okay!

❤

At 80, on your deathbed…

At 80, on your deathbed, you wouldn’t want to be thinking about the words you left unsaid,
About the ties you could have reached out to, and mended,
About how you could have buried the hatchet and let things go,
Or how you should have pushed yourself to listen to your heart, before you decided on your ‘NO’,

At 80, on your deathbed, you wouldn’t want to wonder why you didn’t muster the courage to go after what you wanted,
Or why you’d let opinions of people affect the path you chose to tread,

You wouldn’t want to realise when it is a little too late, that all it would’ve taken is a text, a call, a knock, a wink,

A wave, a nudge, oh just an inkling of a hint –
To tell someone they mattered, you wouldn’t want to be breaking your head about the seemingly endless possibilities –

Of a different world of “what ifs” and “if onlys”,

You wouldn’t want to be dwelling on questions you wouldn’t have answers to,

At 80, on your deathbed, you wouldn’t want to be writhing with regret stinging every vein of your being, would you?

Break open the locks of the hollows you’ve trapped your emotions in, shatter the voids that push you to rebuff,
Mend the fences now, you have waited long enough.

❤

If I were a ray of sunshine…

If I were a ray of sunshine, I’d fall on the trepidation that scorches your veins, on the hesitation that clips your wings,
On nightmares that get to you and drench your mornings,

On the darkness that fills your soul with dread,
On chaos and mishaps that suffocate your breath,

On words left unsaid,
On emotions that choke you with a longing you refuse to acknowledge,

I’d bring with me, an effervescence your heart would seek to soak itself in,

A fire, raging to burn down your chagrin,

The scent of honeysuckles to tickle your efficacy, joy, in abundance, to relinquish your rue,

I’d bring with me hope, to light up your face, breeze, to lilt to your laughter, a sky without clouds, I’d bring with me, a universe, that exults in your happiness and hue.
❤

I have a bone to pick with you.

I have a bone to pick with you,
For every time you chicken out of doing what you want to,
Because you’re scared you’d be ridiculed for wanting it,
Or because you think you’d fumble, you’d fail and scar yourself insipid,

I’ve a bone to pick with you for every single time you singe your brain with trepidation, because you believe you ain’t good enough for anything you want to be,
For every single time, you ludicrously underestimate your ability,

Because, it’s time you know you’re more than those fingernail marks you carve in consternation on your chin,
It’s time you know you’re a star in your own right, look how you surface from the battles you fight within,

You’re more than that blithering pile of clumsiness you envisage yourself to be, you’re stronger than you think – you don’t let yourself shatter with every bout of rue,

You’ve more to you than those trembling hands and fumbling fingers, there’s so much in you to imbue,

I’ve a bone to pick with you, for every time you let self-doubt clout your all,
For every time you seek validation to tell yourself who you are.

If you had to choose just one word…

If you had to pick just one word from the whole of the English dictionary,
What would it be?

A word to elucidate your one-of-a-kind identity,
A word to describe the madness you breathe,
A word for your moments of inexplicable efficacy,
A word to do justice to your profound insanity,
A word for your irreplaceable alacrity,
A word to speak of your existence in entirety,

My choice would, without a doubt, be, eccentricity,

What do you think yours would be? Go on, tell me!

For.

For the whiff of fresh air that seeps in through my veins
Liberating my soul into a space seemingly distant, yet oddly familiar,
Releasing my being, albeit temporarily, from the chains of monotony I willingly tie myself to,
Letting me bask in a bubble without the blithering materialistic cacophony;
For the plethora of stories and experiences, unsettling,
For the multitude of cuisines and cultures I end up discovering,
I travel, making the world my home, it’s people my own, one step at a time.

An indulgence, indeed!

Your hands begin to twitch at the sight of your dinner,
For you have, lying in wait, two cheese burst pizzas, whose crusts can’t get any thinner –
It’s a craving you’d sacrifice your all for, it’s a bait you’d wantonly bite,
You dig into them, bite after bite, you tuck them both into your tummy alright,
And then, you begin to squirm. You begin to fidget with the tiniest twinge of regret,
You begin to wonder if you should resolve to diet –
You contrive a diet that might help your body appease,
A diet sans CHEESE,
You burn the midnight oil trying to wrap your head around it, you sleep over it,
You decide you’d give it your all to keep yourself fit,

Only to come back, to another dinner you can’t resist,
Another indulgence, you wouldn’t bother to desist,
Oh well, this vicious, never-ending cycle I don’t think would ever take a backseat,

So eat, introspect, and repeat?