Every now and then,
Whenever fear-stricken,
I keep forgetting,
Unlearning,
The prequel frets I was in.
Same as the next stride
I would take, unhinged
And untaken, I proceed.
O fear, forgotten!
Do not scorn
My quick-to-forget mind.
Do not mind my haste
To leave you behind.
Why only me, you inquire?
For your traps, unlike any other.
Your forces, stronger.
Your holds, I care to abandon.
And yet, doomed.
For your visits
And embraces are frequent.
But, o fear, forgotten.
Keep being hidden,
Till the next time of forlorn.
Acquiescence
For the mere loathing of complaisance,
I insist upon the intense.
In absolute terror and fear
Of apathy and indifference,
I dredged through.
I looked, and looked,
For something beyond,
For something so much more,
A thing I can’t articulate,
A piece I could never comprehend,
A thought I could never compile,
I forfeited to acquiescence.
Maybe not.
Or so I would like to insist.
But I remain bereft,
And lost,
With all the things
I was scared of becoming,
Only to find
The shadows of the universe
Infinitely multiplied
Beneath my skin.
Sighed in every breath.
Do Not
Do not be swayed,
Do not be alarmed,
I’m only barking,
Not biting.
Do not fret,
Do not be vexed,
It is not you whom I hate,
It’s I, I dread most.
Do not fib,
Do not nod along,
Immerse and prowl through,
Within the fiber of the words.
Do not depart,
Do not walk away,
Hold-wait- stay.
And embrace.
Do Not.
Just don’t,
It’s rather best,
Sometimes, to don’t ,
Than always ‘do’.
Ubiquitous Assimilation
Why, o why, do we soak it all up?
Take it all in without a slurp.
As if it was the whole truth,
God’s truth!
Why, o why, do we accept
Everything and all things we listened,
And saw, and felt?
Why do we sulk into this
Pit of dullness and numbness?
Why, o why, do we assimilate
This ubiquitous threat?
Who deafened our conscience?
Who bribed our minds?
To settle for a trend,
A trash, no less!
Why, o why, do we doublethink?
Why say one thing,
And do the very inverse?
Why think right,
But act different?
Why partly truth,
And in part fiction?
Why, a walking contradiction?
Why, o why, do we integrate,
This unending infinite!
Technicolor
I contemplated my life.
I thought and reflected
On myself.
And I breathed my thoughts
Onto the paper.
Onto the sheets, I wrote.
Onto the pads, I unfolded.
Splotched my notebooks
With an ink.
That is when my world
Changed into technicolor.
The dull, defeated.
The dim brightened.
When the lines form an edge
And birthed words.
So I wrote
Of the things
I, by far, contemplated
And understood.
For my words failed
To tune a sound.
But found their way
To construe my mind.
Burned Letters
I burned the letters.
The letters I wrote
Back in my desperate season.
Or the-hope-filled-saga
As I would like to call it.
I burned it all!
No trace to find,
No words to remind,
No memories to confide,
No more nostalgia to behold.
For better or worse which lies ahead
I burnt the bridge of yester-years.
I cut off the ties,
For a sole reason of
Forgetting.
And erasing.
Only to find myself
Distraught and bereft.
My mind thought
And acted.
While my heart,
My heart is mushy and faint.
And cries over, now,
Not for a lively ink of my words,
But for the ashes of my thoughts.
To What End?
All the search and pursuit, the hunt
And the quest for what?
From the day we are born, until
We die and halt,
We dig and inquire.
Take upon the prizes
Of our tiny captures,
Just to hold us on
Till we engage, yet again,
Another exploration.
We search and pursue,
To triumph and subdue,
The small wins we
Stumble upon.
Only to reckon
The final question,
To what end?
And the Beauty Blooms…
An exquisite work requires an eye,
A longer gaze than the usual,
And an infinite perspective,
To grasp the authentic sense,
To squeeze the true brilliance,
Out of the multilayered canvas.
A finest view
Is a result of long awaited,
Refined brew.
The hastened taste
Wouldn’t make justice,
The lingered flavor, though,
Tickles the buds,
Subsuming pleasure,
Forming a fond to patience,
Over the quick tempt.
A keen intuit,
Unravels the beauty.
When the irrational stumble,
Deplores the value.
Pry and search the depth,
Before the quick wit.
It is rather in patience,
The crude filters,
The edges refine,
And the beauty blooms.
If life was myth free,
Would it have tasted
Or looked better?
Nay, I think not.
Myths are fetishes
We infest on
To sharpen our taste
To polish our gaze
To portray the unknown
Pronounce the unseen.
And when they offend,
As myths usually tend,
Say, it’s only a myth,
Not a sole truth.
Behold the power,
Brooded inside.
Conquer the force,
For myths diffuse,
The uncensored ruse.
And do not jest,
Or mock.
The pretense of mythos.
For life tastes better, certainly.
Or looks un-dull,
If not brighter.
When dabbed in the mystic
Power of myths.
Ravenous Anger
The fiery arms of anger
Would dissolve me into
Ashes, if anything was to devour
My deteriorating self.
The blazing flame
Would burn my attire
To leave me naked
In utter ruin.
The ignited hands of rage
Would fry any demeanor
Of repression and cage
To sulk one in grief
Of causing, yet,
Another pain and destruction.
If anything was to annihilate me,
It would be my ravenous anger.
Along with a collateral damage
Of that surrounds me.
Idyllic Thoughts
It’s the idyllic thoughts
That makes me idle.
While despair and abyss
Engage me in a hustle.
That’s how I know
Finding an itch
To scratch
Is much better
Than being hypnotized
In pleasant bewilderment
Of my fancy island.
It’s the infinite search
Of fitting in and belonging,
That exhausted my soul.
When, in truth,
All my tardiness
Is the result
Of engaging in
The unending quest
Itself.
It’s the figment of my imagination,
Telling me the etiquette of life
Is black and white.
Either this or that.
Absorbing or reflecting
Every other color
That sprung.
When, in reality,
Every propriety
Has a gray area
Of its own.
In my imagination
Where my idyllic thoughts dance,
Endless thoughts pry.
Unfathomable pursuits
Drench my whole being
To end
The demise of my existence.
Matching Wounds
The same air we all breath,
The air we shared with hundreds of billions before us,
The overall same DNA we share,
The ‘humanness’ that abide within,
The long-standing wrongs of the society,
What the past predicted,
What the modernism elevated,
The never-ending issues we bequeathed,
Made an ill fated end.
Pinches, creases, slits, stabs, and lacerated tears.
In all the scales of pain,
Interwined within,
Crocheted on the surface,
Only to find ourselves,
In a matching wounds,
In a whole wide world, shared.
Choose!
I will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better—cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Notes from the Underground)
Into the wild, come with.
Into the deep sea, dive therein.
Into the highest cliff, climb up.
Into the pores of my skin, bury your soul in.
For I’m the wild,
Sprouted in the middle of nowhere,
Oh, God knows where!
For I am the dark sea,
Where no life is embedded,
Only darkness and unlively reigns.
For I’m wrapped in steal
Of high walls and I am
A gate to remain closed.
Come now.
Climb the steal walls.
Cross the deep sea.
Drive into the wilderness.
To lie beneath my skin.
Grab my hand-
My outstretched, inviting hand.
To the exalted suffering,
Rather than the cheap happiness,
Which we could find dispersed
All along the way.
Choose the pain.
For the happiness will leave,
It will abandon,
It will chase,
The brighter living soul.
Than being obligated,
Than being committed,
For the dark and the defeated.
Choose the exalted ache.
Do not settle for less.
For joy and happiness are overrated.
Ecstasy, Euphoria, and Elation
Are deemed to expire,
To disappear into a thin air.
Whereas pain,
Pain, regret, and resentment are constant companions.
They crawl, walk, and run
Along by the side.
Into anything and everything.
Oh, into the abyss, come!
Choose.
Choose when you still can.
Savor the opportunity.
While the time warp is on,
For you to pick,
The exalted pain,
Over the cheap happiness.
I don’t take you for granted, ofcourse.
I cannot possibly do that.
But the things you tell me,
The, good, great things you appreciate of me,
Makes me wonder if you are seeing,
Someone in my stead.
Someone perfect.
Someone qualified and accepted.
Someone who earned your honor.
Someone who is validated.
Someone whom you want to see.
Not someone who is in me.
That’s why your words hurt me.
Your words give me a sour taste in my mouth,
And a sore ache down my spine.
Not because they are bad,
Nor not necessarily false,
But because they are great.
Because after all,
That’s not how I picture myself.
That’s not what my mirror reflects.
Do know, though,
That’s not my excuse,
It’s just my reality.
Unabridged Manuscripts 