The Company of Solitude

Now, I seek solitude for company
Waking to the spectrum of vitality within,
Enough of your rhetoric,
Now's for my soliloquy.

Beneath the semblance of the Silence,
On the verge of bursting any moment.
Silence, spelled as chaos,
Sitting in fear till now,
At the sight of sound and the voice of light,
Stabbing itself with self-consciousness.

Where no one can reach
Neither the notorious comfort of darkness.
Nor the shadow of light.
Neither my thoughts, 
Nor my circumstances, can reach.
For they just are.
And I just am.
When no one's watching,
When I'm not thinking.
(For to start thinking,
Is to not be yourself.)

P.S. Not a narcissistic retreat of self- pity, this.
       I look within myself,
       To rise above myself, eventually.

Choking for a Lifetime

Over-hearing the familiar glare
Signalling the same struggle
Pre-destined to defeat to follow.
The rising voice, the shadow of a raised hand.
Divided by a wall,
My presence reclines to a shadow
Cowering under the blanket,
Fists clenched, trembling,
Twitching to sounds anticipated to be
The final hit.
The final scream
To be heard,
Silenced by her own tears.

Years later,
The scene replays in my head,
Choking on screams in nightmares for help
That failed to come out as my voice
Then and now.

The Evacuation

Skin flaking away to shreds
Breathing a fresh whiff of mockery your way, my way,
Shrouding their compliments and
My pride that turned stale
As they were uttered.

Alphabets 
Lisping out of my mouth
Numbers
Trickling out of my mind
(Not a hospitable host,
This existence of mine, they recount.)
Fears & dreams 
Going into comatose.

Clock-hands pointing at me, 
At the stroke of wakeful realization
Like arrows, yanking out and
Darting past me, in all directions
On a time-bound mission.

Sounds, gone out of tune inside of me
Screeching out of my ears
Favourite colors, smells, sights 
Now driving me nauseous
A choking cough that echoes 
(Was it not supposed to stifle it, like in movies?)
Of all of these
Crashing at me, 
Trying to weave again
That familiar path on that train
That leads to the crossroads of that maze
Of self- destructiveness 
That I seemed destined for,
No matter where I'd exit from.
("The exit is only a dead-end!", a fleeting voice quivers)
As I stagger under weightlessness
While familiarity squints into a blur 
and
Alienation burrows a happy home
Mute stares from my end lasting three nanoseconds
Angry for they still don't get it
Thrilled, breathing a sigh of relief.
For I get it, lest I should forget it,
This, where I had arrived.

Or

Was I inhaling stagnant complacency 
Slipping into the reprieve of familiarity again,
Of accursed i-dent-ity
Wait. Am I getting familiar with myself?


P.S. Things you held dear
Where are those now?
Were they yours to admire?
Or mine to own?

Conversations in My Head

Now, I utter words
Thinking them twice over
Overwhelmed as I am
In your presence.

Hesitate looking up,
Prefer staring blindly at my hands
(Knowing you're happily staring at me)
Risking that sheepish smile
Which would eventually
Give away feelings, mine,
Acknowledge; yours.
Anticipate and weave 
Conversations I'd like to
Have with you, someday

With childlike glee 
End up thinking in my head
Of things you'd long back said,
Making myself happy over & over again,
Breaking into half-embarrassed laughter
Then hide behind a coy smile
Thinking of the few times,
When I did not turn away
Pretending not having seen you.

P.S. Beating about the bush
       Till now in words
       Giving the matter a push
       Through this corny verse.

Women's Day and no Men's Day

Women's Day is here. For some, it means attending seminars, for some others, it's about forwarding text snippets wishing each other a 'Happy Women's Day.' For me, it may be about writing a tactful copy line for my company's newsletter content informing customers about how we mean to acknowledge this day, by offering an 'irresistible' discount of a few dollars on outfits on our site. And more such claustrobhic cliched images blurring past your sight that drive you crazy. It'll be there to greet me, and many other humans, next year too, I'm certain. 

Celebrating Women's Day? Commemorating this day, is an acknowledgement, or a feeble but sinewed hope towards promulgating egalitarianism. Or so I would like to think, not believe, yet. Keeping in mind instances, like the stature of transgenders in our country - the government a little to eager too boast of having given out 1600-odd Aadhaar Cards to transgender residents in Delhi way back in August last year - when members of the community do not even have the prerequisites for applying for the Aadhaar Card, for obvious reasons. Besides the stench of notions about them that have floated in the form of furtive glances and whispers all along, in the country. What about the fact there's no 'Men's Day' in the calendar? In a country where gender has always been misinterpretedly veiled under monochromatic extremes, forever struggling to code gender as binary opposites, love as pink or gay, where the majority seems to be unable to cope up with the acknowledging/accepting that the question doesn't end at a simple 'You're pardonable because you haven't committed the act of rape in real. (Oh but he's fantasized about it with quite as many women passing by him, at a bus stop, maybe?') 

The rampant and forever unacknowledged inequality that women face, and all internalise, as natural, for the rest 364 days of the year, in all spheres - does a 'global' celebration actually boil to even an echo of the 'ideal', at a home, cultures, geographies away, is the question.