A Bag of Thoughts

little time stayed in positon attacking with fierce blows had no choice grimacing was more miserable to flee with. so called life in the shape of wonder lost among the clouds in the shadows of secrets lighting up like angels. blood like raindrops across his shoulder nasty dreams they stab the moonlight flawed silence is afraid of progress audacity harboring precarious broken doors to such no stranger would hope be discovered with inexperience caused by a shattered everything soon the world goes rigid but it matter not to his unsmiling eyes for they darted from a knife to a box of darkness and there too was beauty in gathered dust.

after a long day, or when you realise it isn’t working, or when the blue of the sky is blurred out by the grey of the clouds, just a cup of coffee doesn’t help, not me, a caress on the cheek or a nice compliment doesn’t either, not me, it’s the slow, ethereal melodies and the catchy guitar notes and the syncing of the voice with the haughty beat, this is what makes my day feel real, my existence a little more substantial, my beliefs more believable. anticipating the bridge of the song having heard it over and over, having it placed in your heart, ears perking up wherever there's a beat similar to that of the song’s, goosebumps breaking out at an unexpectedly touching lyric. what’s the best? when you’re away from everyone, in a happy place, the weather irrelevant as long as there’s a book in hand, the sound of music to rely on, that there shall always be a world to run away to, a world where i can pretend as if this one doesn’t exist, always, t...

a cat padding down a street is surprised, its senses are enveloped with bursts of snapping crackers, welcoming exclamations, warm tea-lights that light up each dark corner. every house on the street flaunts its own variety  of fairy lights illuminated by countless flames and  a devotion impossible to put into words. it’s incredible how one flame is enough to give birth to another five  or more, is enough to irradiate joy,  anticipation and hope, in the form of a  brilliant yellow light. and when night falls, houses resonate with  the zealous ringing of bells  and  a pure smell of flowers, sweets and liquid wax wafts all around inviting the hidden and awaiting  to a sumptuous, rich Indian dinner later. families with each member’s forehead smeared with vermillion they serve and share love  and food, and they laugh, and gift, and plan for the years ahead. but ever...

What exactly is home?  I keep finding myself bumping into this question. It’s a simple question with deep implications and different ones for different people.  What is home? Is it just the house that provides one shelter? Can it only be the social definition of ‘home’? Do people from the same family, living in the same house always have the same home?  I sit in my room with the relentless sounds of hoarse drilling, deliberate hammering and constant sawing float around the house, reaching my ears. The day I returned from Sahyadri, I was surprised by how different circumstances were now. I could see the shift in the mood in the two floors and it was almost like I could feel the house echoing with anticipation and eagerness. When I returned I didn’t eat in front of the television like I used to. Instead I sat facing the midnight blue velvet of the bed in my parents’ room, chewing monotonously on rice and rajma. It was weird.  It felt different. Even a...

It always hurts. I always hurt. Myself, that too. It goes around in this exaggerated parabola of a chain, hits me in the stomach and  my feet give out under me each time. Each time, I want to escape it,  this feeling that something is amiss,  that I’m in the wrong place.  And each time,  I’m blind-folded,  my vulnerability ticks away from showing up in full swing,  my heart a reckless beast that  I try to hide  in futile rags.  Always,  I’m reaching out,  stumbling over unseen rocks  and feelings,  I’m calling out.  I’m screaming.  Loud,  wailing.  No, but  between us, all there is,  is space.  Particles floating between us, that’s all.  I turn on a torch,  they’re stars to me.  But nevertheless, space.  Space it is.  Never blank, never empty.  Always space.  Between this word and t...

The breeze sweeps the forest away, The night swallows my heart whole, My head, it rests against the pillow, And my ear pressed against the soft fabric, Listening to the emptiness beyond.  Eyes close and it’s a dream that I meet, And I see me and them  And me.  And the garden full of  Orange explosions that have been  Paused, Made to stand still and bloom, Bloom as flowers. And a window in the airplane, My sight covered by majestic clouds, As we descend from the stratosphere, Clouds and clouds Like cotton-candy  and cotton  and a thought.  The plane ventures into a cloud  as big as it can get, and the blinding whiteness,  envelops us,  some hygroscopic nuclei and  turbulences later,  we emerge. And a rainbow, That isn’t all curves, But the tip of a cylinder, Pointed toward me,  And it  Expands, expands Like a warm feeling in the stomach Or...

The flow in my head has  Been interrupted The voices in my ears have grown weary My heart, a tired compulsion.  The flow in my head has  Been cut off Abruptly  The voices in my ears have Taken to the dark The urge and tears Bring words I comprehend not. Color has changed shades And change is a flashing bandanna  I would only take off to Obscure the rest of my  Identity, behind an opaque  Curtain of a shallow Everything.  Then when a foghorn blows  In the distance So much  Has happened Is happening Should be happening For my w ords are fractured   My chamber of insecurities Been broken into, And yet, Flaming, gasping, reaching out, I look for words. It makes no sense, Pranks, And ‘arguments’, And grudges, And misunderstandings, And short-comings, And inabilities, And obligations,  And pain. And hoping for them to see (not look), And giv...

And I was shoved face into nondescript, green garments, Just another sign of another shedding token of my normality, Sitting on a wheelchair, A victim of bitter perception, Silent glances and boisterous objections. It perhaps, was a dream, Titled ‘A Day At Its Absolute Worst’, Fraught with thousands of unfamiliar, strange faces, Unmeant empathy and, Unsolicited painkillers. Then post-sleep, comes anticipation, Of it, Of that, Of alas- that-mustn’t-be-named, Of the tenure under concentrated lights And painstaking crafting of my mindless vessel of a body, Of finally waking up to a blinding, spinning room, Of curious crimson stains and cotton-white bandages, Of reaching out for familiar faces against the odd backdrop, Against the struggling explosion somewhere inside. It echoes, A loud, resonating feeling, A constant threat, A relentless grip around my throat. Did time stop? (Or did I?) A day, Not an eternity, I was told, W...

                                                                White, yellow, green, brown, it matches, soothes. They breathe calm, nature, rocks impede war. A breath-taking understanding     they love so,  they lean on, they  fight not .

I’m an ordinary Asian girl with an ordinary eye, hair and blood colour, I don’t like change, I hate the fact that it’s inevitable, I abhor the ephemeral realities we’re living in. When I cry, it’s not like a monster inside me trying to escape, more like a person inside me who’s tired of these inexplicable feelings. When I cry, instead of tears, it’s the words that spill. Then it’s the world against me            it’s pressing hard against me              it’s letting us all fall                           like snowflakes                                    that                                  disappear                   ...

Note: This is a piece written as an exercise for characterization and perspective based on a piece of art by Norman Rockwell.  Frank: the little boy in the corner. Frank didn’t like school. In fact, he didn’t like most things and people. Nevertheless, every dogged morning his mother with her icy-white hair and apple-red lipstick woke him up. Frank was just a small boy with ugly braces and heavy, black spectacles; a tiny entity, an ant in all that action, momentum and movement. A dog nearly died. A bus nearly crashed. Many adults went to work late that morning. So what? He went to school late but the teacher smiled her dainty smile at him without any questions; so that was good. Frank shrugged everyone’s disconcertion as if it were an unsolicited cloak on a rather dry evening. He paused for a minute to take the near accident in and thought only of that chocolate pudding that his mother’d made last Christmas.  The black cat on the balcony. I’d...

  The instructor said,       Go home and write       a page tonight.       And let that page come out of you—       Then, it will be true. What am I? Who am I? I know the answer, but don’t quite understand it. Perhaps, it is more complicated than saying a writer a thinker a dreamer. Or— a believer.  I believe, we only exist in our heads. I’m a seeker, a witness of love and, of unicorns and snow, of sand and cake of Everything worth the light. I’m confused, I don’t know, but I’m trying to live with that. I think to write and to channel my contemplations  into absurd poems like this. I yawn not to snore, I sneeze to not succumb. I read to travel and travel to  feel the breeze in my hair. I... well, I don’t know.  Note: To most this may seem like a fairly random poem t...