Art as an outlet

I used to be able to put my feelings into words, filling page after page in diaries.
At some point, I stopped writing in first person, telling my stories through “her” and other characters.
As I aged, I transitioned to exclusively writing poetry, hiding behind metaphors and ambiguity.
And now..
There is so much of me wanting to hide,
Yet so much of me spilling out in crimsons and violets.
I guard my inner life fiercely, and art tries to pull me out of this solitude, desperate for human connection.

Unfinished

We distilled ourselves into concise versions,
The best of what we could be,
While revealing our flaws too.
I wish I had the chance to take you through my personality comprehensively.
I would have shown you every milestone, every scar.
I wish I had the chance to discover the multitudes of your moods,
your hopes and insecurities.

What do I call this, what we managed to have in this little while?
There was barely enough time to conceive it, to let it develop.
We are products of a world obsessed with rationality,
And yet, in the quiet hours before dawn,
hidden from everyone, I half-whisper it to myself,
This word in its most fragile, nascent form,
that could have grown enough one day
To be said out loud.

Lament

If I still have dues to pay,
Please universe, postpone their collection to another lifetime.
Let me have some respite in this life.

Rancid

Love,

When left in too long,

Curdles; turns rancid.

It wants airing, this love.

It needs to see the light of the day.

Illusions

In the interim cool of the oasis,
I forget about the desert.

I am grateful, I tell myself,
For the shade and the water.
This is what I wanted, isn’t it?
What I prayed for, for days
As I walked, alone and parched.

I try to remember back,
When I asked to be placed in the desert.
No memories come to mind.

A memory comes instead,
Of wanting adventures in rainforests,
Lush greenery and birdsong.
I was granted that wish,
And greenery paved way
For horrors of the jungle,
Beasts and monsters,
Ready to devour me.
I am sorry, I remember praying,
I didn’t know any better.
But this is what you asked for,
Didn’t you?

Rested now, I set about
Making this oasis livable.
Building castles out of air is a lot easier
Than building homes out of sand, I find.

I learn to accept the solitude,
The endless heat,
The freezing nights.
I should be grateful, I tell myself,
For the sunsets reflected in water.

Each morning, I see two eagles in the distance,
And I think idly,
That it might be nice to have a companion
In this empty, barren land.

And eventually, I find one
Rattling under a cactus bush.
This is what you wanted, isn’t it?
You asked for a companion.

Prayers can no longer be short, it appears.
There need to be clarifying clauses.
And sub-clauses.
And footnotes.

And there is no point wishing for rainforests,
If I am to end up being disillusioned.
And what is the point,
of wishing for unreachable destinations.

I wonder if praying for everything dilutes the power of the prayer.
Will I get nothing if I ask for everything?
Will I lose everything else if I ask for just one?

I am accustomed now
To my sand home,
To my battles with the rattles,
To the calls of the eagles,
To the reflections of the sun.

There are so many silver linings,
I tell myself.

I cannot remember the last time,
I reached a star that I actually aimed for.

The Color of Anger

They are mistaken,
Those who think that anger is red.
That it bubbles up like a pot on the stove,
And lashes out as boiling water,
Scalding others and cooling itself.

Anger is brown,
It is murky in its motivations
And opaque in its origins.

It is a clear yellow,
Making its way into the heart,
Into the stomach,
Acidic and biting.

It is green
As it keeps score,
Envious and entitled.

It is blue,
Made of tears,
And the sky at 4 am of another insomniac night.

But mostly, it is white.
Empty and unforgiving.

Prayer

With what words do I pray?
What access remains to a higher power,
when you go through loss of faith?
To an agnostic like me, oh gods,
tell me of your success rates.

The Beast

This beast inside of me,
occupying space and time and memory,
has trapped me in prison,
constructed oddly – inside out.
Purring, gnawing at my hopes,
turning into lead and flowing in my veins,
pouring – steely cold – into my organs,
so that the weight of my body
becomes too much upon my soul.

Does it know that it is dulling my senses?

I wonder if it was always this monster,
Perhaps, the horrors of the world turned it wild.
Perhaps, it was scared and exhausted to be judged,
Perhaps, it was only looking for a place to hide.

Questions

Are lanterns haunted by the ghosts of the moths?
Does the moon apologize to the tides?
Will the universe read our obituaries,
and think of the role it played in our lives?
Will they all plead innocent —
Bystanders by virtue of perspective?
Will they argue, somewhat disconcerted
That all they did was exist?

Hold

Hold this hand,
that has held another many moons ago.
There will be something of the past
that I could not wash away.

Most nights, I will sleep contentedly
my head nestled on your shoulder,
my arm wrapped across your chest,
smiling lightly.

On some nights, I will wake up
And look past you,
seeing the ghosts that I thought I had banished.

Bring me back.
Take me to the window
And point out the stars
That have survived for light years
As the universe shattered and remade itself around them.

I will listen to your music
Tapping my foot gently to the rhythm,
And on most days
I will sing along with you
Not remembering that these songs,
I once sang to another.

On some days,
I will stop mid-song;
Something of the past caught in my throat.

Sing to me.
Erase the links between music and memory.
If not,
give me new memories.

In return, my love,
I will draw a silver lining on all your clouds.

I will write love poems to you,
Erasing the links between words and your memories.
If not,
I will give you new memories.

I will look out of the window
And point out through the stillness of the night
The breaking horizon turning crimson,
Just as you broke your darkness with light.

I will take you back from the window
And hum softly
So you can fall asleep contentedly once more.

And I will hold your hand,
with something of your past,
that you could not wash away.