~An ode to Baghjan ~

The air i breathe
Stinks of smoke,
The groung beneath,
A heap of ash.
My eyes burn
At the sight of homes
Carefully built over years of love and bonding,
Crumble into dust
In the arms of a hue
So dazzlingly traumatic,
It turns into a whimper
Of greenery turning into
barren land,
With skeletons in place of trees
That once stood high with pride,
Dancing to the songs of birds and animals,
Of fishes frolicking
In rivers and ponds.
This emptiness, where once flourished life,
Squeezes my heart,
And a tear drops down into the pond
Where brave souls took the hands of the creator.
Of the families  who lost
Lives and homes,
Of the emptiness
That this tragedy left behind.
This isnt a poem, this is mourning.
This is grief, this is fear.
The flames of tragedy reach into the sky
In the midst of all the ruins,
And so does hope,
And the promise of healing,
Of faith that orange skies
Will once more be beautiful sunsets.

-

~ dandelion ~

Of windchimes dancing
In the arms of fluttering curtains,
In swirls and splashes,
In dips and skips,
In humble chimes,
quite not in tune
to the melodies of the summer breeze,
You remind me
Of all the times I yearned
to dance like a fool,
giddy in the warmth of your arms-
like a breathless dandelion
leaning into the storm,
when all it wanted
was a ray of sun,
a home to belong.

-

//Muskaan//

You say my smile is spectacular,
Radiant like the burning sun,
Like brooks rushing downhill
Like a thousand bells ringing in a shrine. It's poetic, you say,
How happiness spills
Like stardust when I smile.

I look into the mirror and smile.
All that looks back at me
Is a monster with her lips curled back in disgust,
fangs dripping with her own blood.
I smile so bright
It feels like wildfire in my heart,
My blood, a river of arsenic.
My insides twist in agony and I scream so loud
You think it is laughter.

My smile is a metaphor, an elegy,
A ballad, a war, a tragedy.
My smile is poetry.

They say it takes less muscles to smile
Than to cry.
So that's what I do, I smile.
I'm exhausted.
Mind if I lean onto you for a moment?
"Ah...I'd love to stay but-"
I nod. I smile.

-

//My poems//

"My poems,

Wistful symphonies

Of laughter and smiles

In an age of darkness 

And gloom,

And streams of melancholy

Seeping through 

The cracks of my heart

Weeping into the night

Beneath fairy lights

And gleaming smiles.

My poems...."


(In caption)

-

// You and I //

There is something in physics called quantum entanglement. A tiny packet of light, a photon, hurtles through the universe on its own and somewhere out there, perhaps light years away, there is another photon. Both so far apart, yet so connected that even light years away, they affect each other, mirror each other and there is no damn explanation for it.

You and I are a pair of such photons. Our heartbeats, a soulful symphony of violins playing poles apart, but here we are, basking in the warmth of each other's heart. They look at us and see nothing. We feel our souls intertwining with each other like strings of fate, subtle, almost invisible, but timeless and resilient.

-

~ seatbelt ~

There is nothing beautiful
Elegant or poised about love.
Love is deceitful.
Love stutters when confronted.
Love spews sugar coated profanities.
Love is clumsy, careless.
A hopeless rollercoaster.
And damn my heart,
It refuses to wear a seatbelt.

-

CONFESSIONS OF AN UGLY GIRL

(Read caption)

".....My lips, scrubbed raw,
Soft and blood-dripping-pink
For wayward men to taste
And purr their pleasure
For the perfect fruit
Of "their" society, "their" world,
And sigh "their" approval
For me slaughtering my own body...."

-

//परिचय//

उगते सूरज की पहली किरण हूँ मैं ।
बंजर ज़मीन देख खिलखिलाती मेघा हूँ मैं ।
जैसे दरिया के समंदर से जा मिलने की ख्वाहिश,
जैसे उड़ते पतंग के कटने की साज़िश ।
मैं मुस्कान हूँ उस चाँद का,
मैं लाज हूँ तिमतिमाते तारों का ।
मैं उम्मीद हूँ, मैं विधाता हूँ ।
मैं ही वक़्त, मैं ही दास्तान ।
मैं कथाकार इस रंगमंच का,
गुज़रते वक़्त की अधूरी कविता ।
मुट्ठी से फिसलती रेत हूँ मैं ,
जीवन हूँ मैं ।।

-

We are all victims
Of heartbreaks, anxiety,
Betrayals and ache.
But what use is our pain
If it doesn't make us stronger
Than who we used to be?
What use are our tears
If we know not how to rise
From our melancholy
Like a Phoenix from ashes?

-

THE INEVITABILITY OF GOODBYES

"...You happened to me like the first shower after a decade of drought, a humble sprout in a barren desert, and all those metaphors poets use to describe the intensity of that moment, of that hope, of love and of life. You happened to me like time happens to monuments, you were inevitable..."

( caption)

-