Words in Chains- Complete

PART- I

 

The world around me inoculates my thoughts,

With a pen in my hand, as I compose;

The pure ecstasy that moulding words into a poem brings me,

Bringing life to a story on a paper, to people I chose.

And as I write, I make new friends,

Friends I can revisit when I want to;

Tattooed onto my writing pad forever,

Freezing them in time, making sure they never grew.

 

A paradox to the world we live in,

Words transport me to places I didn’t know existed;

Set in the place of your choice, with the people you choose,

They may be calm in demeanor, or plain twisted.

Weaving situations as the pen scratches the pad,

Tweaking the plot as I proceed,

And as I write, I smile to myself,

Knowing that a happy ending is guaranteed.

 

The unadulterated joy that reciting my composition gives me,

Warms me from the inside;

Letting anyone who lends me a ear, enter my world,

I couldn’t hide my excitement if I tried.

I’d like to think people like to read what I write,

Understanding and feeling the way I do;

Writers and readers amalgamated by the words of the alphabet,

By means of empathy, knowing what the characters go through.

Organizing what needs to be mentioned, what needn’t,

Sparing me the trouble of getting my speech slurred.

Carefully rearranging letters, suppletory to my thoughts;

Emotions are so much easier to convey through the written word.

 

PART- II

 

I’d always felt the shadows lingering around me,

Eyes fixed, blending into the dark of their presence;

Shrugging it off, convincing myself of being paranoid,

I calm myself down, the fear lessens.

The loitering tug of my inner policing,

Convinced me something wasn’t right,

The foreboding of a future threat

Wrenches me day and night.

 

After a long day at work, I couldn’t wait to get home,

Watch some unintelligent television, eat some junk food;

Savour the beauty of inactivity; lay lazy on the couch,

Possibly the only thing to lift my mood.

Sprinting towards the bus stop,

My heels clopping against the pavement;

The bus would be here in another twenty minutes,

Waiting alone, I’d have to be patient.

 

I reach for my bag, fish out my phone,

Tap it against my knee, hoping to get connection to the network;

When suddenly I hear a slight shuffling behind me,

I turn my head with a sudden jerk.

I see a man walk towards me,

Eyes, fixed and glaring;

Before I knew it, his hands covered my face,

Leaving my body limp; with his swift movements so uncaring.

 

PART- III

 

Peeling my eyes open, squint as I struggle to see the unfamiliar surroundings,

Scared, I feel a lancinating pain emerging from my head,

Still amnesic from the events that preceded;

I push myself up, eyes still closed, from the bed.

I’m faced with movement in front of me,

I let out a small scream;

I realize it’s just my reflection on the mirror on the wall,

Began hoping and praying this was all a bad dream.

 

I hear myself screaming as I shuffle towards the edge;

Half expecting the inertia of ropes that would stop me from moving-

But I didn’t. The creak of a shifting chair emerges from the next room,

Heavy footsteps against the wooden floors, terror inducing.

The door swung open, the familiar shadow of my stalker eclipsed the light,

He flicked a switch and a gold hue was dispersed,

Bulky looking, holding something seemingly small in his hand,

I only expected the worst.

 

He looked straight at me, eyes bloodshot,

As I sat quivering across him, hands folded across my chest;

He opened his mouth with a voice quivering,

I was shocked. It was nothing like I would have guessed.

It was almost as though he pleaded me,

As he instructed me to sit upright;

He spoke with a lisp and stuttered midway,

His voice didn’t match his sight.

And with one swift movement,

He pushed what was in his hand my way;

I shuddered slightly, panic-stricken,

And I look down, I had nothing to say..

 

PART IV

 

And with one swift movement,

He pushed what was in his hand my way;

I shuddered slightly, panic-stricken,

And I look down, I had nothing to say..

Painted a rotting yellow with paints of time-

A small sheaf of papers, huddled around a pen;

He looks at me, his eyes now soft,

Nothing made sense to me right then.

 

And in the bat of an eye, his demeanor changed,

His voice a pitch too high;

“Write!”, he yells out too loud

And flings the sheets onto my thigh.

Absentmindedly, I pick them up,

Unconsciously arranging them as I do,

“Write me a masterpiece, only for me;

I’ll give you an hour or two.”

 

Unsure of his intentions, I let out a little cry,

He hushes me before he storms out,

Iffy as to what to do, tears rolling down my cheek;

I think this man is maniacal, without a doubt.

Enveloped by the silence and the briny scent of my tears,

I begin to write.

I wrote about pain, I wrote about sorrow,

I wrote about how I’d cry through the night.

And as I wrote, I began to forget where I was,

That’s when I hear the sound of the turning key,

He barged into the room and asked me if I was done,

If I was done with my poetry.

 

He orders me to read it out loud,

And as I do, his eyes wide in passion, I see him squirm in his seat,

I’d be sobbing through it all, he’d wait until I was done,

And then he would ask me to repeat.

That’s when I saw what this was,

It was his unrequited thirst for an art.

An art he wished he possessed. An art he craved.

An art, the longing for which forever stabbed his heart.

 

Restrained me for his pleasure, he did,

His greed for the art, he wished not to share;

He leeched on the high that poetry provided,

For this he bound me, without a care.

In the attempt of slimming my audience,

To include no one but he,

Everyday he’d make me write and recite to him,

Until then, withholding me from what I need.

Thirty poems later, he was still starved,

His appetite like a hungry wolf increased,

Someday people would realize I’m missing,

I will be saved, saved from his ceaseless need…

 

PART- V

 

I will be saved, saved from his ceaseless need…

 

I was saved, saved from his ceaseless need,

And when I escaped I grabbed my poems,

That he protects with his unrivaled greed.

Poems written in pain, poems written in hope,

Knowing freedom would come, plush with meanings.

Poems written when I was battered down,

And still hoped to rise from the ashes like a phoenix.

 

As I find salvation from all that happened,

My words in chains found its essence;

The art that he wished to masquerade and hide,

The dark words found their luminescence.

Published for all to read and see,

My words written in pain.

My words in chains.

If Only I Could

I wrote this poem for a college competition. The topic was ‘If Only I Could’. This poem, I try to put myself into the minds of the differently abled. In so many ways, inspite of what they don’t have, they’re better than us. What if they had all that we did? I wish to see the things the way they do and change whatever puts them through pain. 

If Only I Could..

Dance with the people who haven’t had the chance,

Support them on their feet, sway to the beat of life and love that surrounds,

Handicapped- not just by fate, but by their inner demons and the society,

I’d love to see them move, threading their feet along, ever so lightly.

If Only I Could..

Sing with those who haven’t even tried,

People with so much to say, but haven’t been given the voice,

I’d love to see them raise themselves as they raise their tone, hear their laughter and cries;

Surround them not by the darkness of silence, but with the beauty of noise.

If Only I Could..

Talk to those who’ve never heard a sound,

Communicate, not with my hands in signs, but words so loud,

Show them the beauty of music and the melodies of their soul,

If they did make music, how beautiful would it be? If only I could watch that magic unfold.

If Only I Could..

Give a chance to the blind to see,

Everything that the world has shut off for years,

Would they open their eyes with surprise,

And absorb the colours of the universe?

Will they miss the darkness that surrounded them before,

Or readily engulf themselves in the majestic colours set forth?

If Only I Could..

Give life to those who live no more,

Hearts stopped before they could even take in a breath of fresh air.

They would live a life that has never been,

They could have been leaders and see what revolutionaries have seen.

If Only I Could..

See through the eyes of a special child,

Are their thoughts gentle or do their imaginations run wild?

I’d love to hear what they think and see what they do,

Their bright minds ever so dulled by an unfortunate gene pool.

 

Imagine if they’d been given everything we have,

They’d value it so much more than we do;

They would rise above all else, learning as they go,

Teaching us too.

I don’t wish to put us on a pedestal,

I wish to place them there.

They’re higher than us in their thoughts and actions,

I’d love to know what they have to share.

If Only I Could..

ENGLISH

English is a language universally spoken,

Be it native, fluent or broken;

It’s not all that easy, I’ll give you that much,

Grammar, punctuation and the rules are not tough as such.

So here are the mistakes commonly made,

So common, they are almost clichéd.

 

In the world of technology we live in now,

Short hands have become so popular, and how!

The words your and you’re oft swapped,

This is how most of the arguments on the internet are stopped.

My response to “Your beautiful” would be- My beautiful what?

To “Your welcome” would be- I most certainly hope not.

And to “I love you’re eyes” – Then you wouldn’t write this for them to see.

I am a bit of a Grammar Nazi so just let me be.

Then there’s the famous interchange between their and they’re,

As is the exchange of the words- where, were and wear.

 

There’s a few words, to this day, I confuse,

Much to my mother’s amusement.

 

When I was younger, I would fill in a dairy every night,

Maybe I was just that convinced I was a cow then,

I would even lock my little DAIRY up and quite surprisingly,

It was white.  

 

The interchange between the words affect and effect,

This results in a statement becoming completely incorrect,

This misuse affects me- Oh, so bad.

The effect– this poem on my writing pad.

 

The difference between coma and comma,

Thank you for teaching me that, dear momma,

Because I no longer put people in a state of prolonged unconsciousness,

In the middle of a sentence. God bless.

 

Would you like some desert on your plate?

There has been quite a lot for you to read.

I’ll put in some sand and a little palm tree too,

With how many ever cacti you need.

Darkness so bright.

You are who you are when you’re alone.
For you do the things you want to do,
You think the thoughts you actually think
And you behave like your true self too.

People are an addition,
Catalysing a change in you,
Fake, you begin to lie to yourself and see YOU in a different light,
Hard to separate the lies from what’s true.

In the darkness, shines a light,
A light so bright,
The light of recognition,
Of recognising the you that you are.
Search within the dark, know who you are,
The you inside your being, is the final guiding star

Black and White

(I wrote this poem for a competition today and won second, so thought of sharing it!)

I’m alone, all alone.

I’m the villian of my own tale.

I wish my life was more like anyone else’s,

Just not this 19 year old male.

The loneliness hits me when I’m in a crowd,

and yet, alone I am.

Is it me or is it everyone else? In my head,

Causing the bedlam?

I’ve lost my sense of balance

Standing on a broken floor,

Pity is not what I want, Sympathy- I hate all the more.

Black are the hopes of my future,

Casting its evil deathly shadow on my past.

It’s not just a time, it’s not recoverable,

It’s something that should just pass.
Black are all of my dreams, darkened in intensity by the bad decisions I made.

Black are the times that made me smile,

Now just memories to be erased.

It’s not that something happened, people just change,

I guess, right now, I’m just one of those people.

I don’t want anyone to hear me, but me.

I’m speaking to the ‘I’ inside of me.

He needs to know how broken I am,

Broken as ever could be.

As to every bee a hive, to every pig a sty (?!)

I’m searching for my home, my WHITE.

I don’t find them, so I’ll make them!

I will take my brush and I’m going to dip it all,

Soaking, shimmering blindingly almost, in white it shall be,

I will be the master of my own destiny. I’ll be the change I expect to see.

And so I start, the light white strokes to fix the blotched pictures in my head,

Still peeping out slightly through the thin white, a dark batch,

“But this is the right path,

And this is how I shall proceed.”, I said.
I sure tried, I might even win,

To bring balance and peace to my “I” within.

And just when I thought everything was fine,

I tripped and fell onto the broken floor. Creaking into its laughter,

At my fall, I just pick myself up and dust myself off.

My ego has fallen, that’s all.

I’m not all alone, there are whites in my blacks,

Slowly I drift away from my mental monochrome,

I forget about the people I love too often. I shouldn’t,

The people from a place I call home.

I must admit, it’s not the easiest task,

To be so far away from all you love and know.

I need to sleep sometimes, I can make mistakes,

It’s my inner darkness I fear the most.

Even heroes are allowed to cry, no reason to judge me by.

I save lives, mine needs saving, more than even now,

I need a reward, I need to be recognised, I need Love.

The black and white story of someone who seems so bright,

Someone in a red cape and a blue suit,

The boy from Smallville can be homesick too.

His emotions were just being held on mute.

There comes a time, every once in a while, he needs to vent.

He needs to shout it out!

To burst the darkness of his thoughts and replace it with the melting white nothingness.

And then he can say,”I’m fine. I’m Superman.”

zzzzzzZZ.

So I have my finals coming up in a few days and its is precisely at this time that I understand the value of sleep. On a normal day, a 5 hour sleep would work just fine for me, but nowadays, I could sleep anywhere, anytime, anyhow. The other day I actually dozed off an entire HOUR in the library over the sound of the Air Conditioner and the scratching of pens on paper, in my slightly wet jacket from the rains. And I woke up with an irritable crick in my neck, red marks on my hands and smudged eyeliner all over my face.

Its almost as though, as stress shows its ugly head over the horizon, the invisible ubiquitous force of the Sleep Gods comes into action. Maybe it’s just my coping mechanism, I don’t know, but I’m not sure if it’s the best. My system seems to be so used to coffee, it has sort of developed a resistance to it. Coffee now has the PHENOMENAL ability to put me to sleep too.

So now what happens in my head as I doze off. It’s a place I’d love to take you all through, because I seem to love it so much- IF ONLY I REMEMBERED. Those things you see inside your head, what are they? Dreams, nightmares, why? A beautiful cocktail of biological, psychological and spiritual process happening all at once, overlapping in the most non-threatening way possible- to lead us to absolute nothingness. Why is it that this nothingness is so fulfilling? Babies sleep all the time they can, children try their best to avoid sleep, but us teenagers and adults savour every moment we get.

And now writing this is making me sleepy too- not that I actually need a predecessor for it, but like I said, I love it’s nothingness. Nothing is just so beautiful.

zzzzzzzz

Should beggars be encouraged?

Begging is a business.

I’ve lived in India for almost a year now and this place is a beautiful but rather uncomfortable mix of rich and poor. I say begging is a business. There’s a long traditional line of people who exclusively get past life begging.

Why am I writing about this today? I had 3 encounters in 20 minutes- I am not kidding.

The first was at the ATM. I was standing outside in line awaiting my turn and listening to music. As soon as I come out, I am surrounded by 3 children of about 7-10 years of age. They wait for you to get out of the ATM knowing that you will have money in hand, and pounce. It was hard to ignore, but I just look away and walk.

I know you must be thinking, why didn’t I just give them money? Well, experience is the best teacher. I am required to give each one of the children their share and you’ll have another one joining the army every step you take. And there’s another thing. If you do give them money, they ask for more, claiming its too less and not enough.

The second encounter was with a girl, about 7 years of age. She wore loud paayals (anklets with bells) and ran behind anyone she could find.

Before I tell you the third encounter, I have to tell you about another beggar I saw. This was a man, of about 40 years. He was sitting in front of the hospital main road, and he didn’t have a hand and both his legs. Even as I passed by, he didn’t utter a word. He just watched as everyone walked past and stayed where he was. I took out the change I had and handed it over. He simply smiled.

The third encounter was when I was walking with my friend to the clinic. Deepicca, I hope you’re reading this. We were holding our fancy articulators and trying to cross the road, when suddenly out of nowhere, 2 kids spot us and lock targets. They jump towards us and are YELLING (no, I am not exaggerating) and jumping around us asking for money. They wouldn’t let us move forward, they would touch our hands and bags and my labcoat (as I gripped my phone tighter) and continued to walk. I kept telling my friend to keep walking and not to acknowledge their presence. They went on following us for half our route and figured they weren’t getting anything from us, muttered some profanities rather loudly and walked off.

I completely understand that consequences and bad experiences drove them to beg. But what the issue according to me is that if they can come up with such smart ideas about where and how to beg and if they have hands and legs that work well, I’m mighty sure they could get a job. Maybe not a respectable one (washing dishes in a hotel, cleaning), but surely more respectable than begging. I wish I could do something, but I just can’t think of anything to fix the situation, because at the end of the day, they’re human beings too..

The definition of “Aggressive panhandling” may vary. In the USA, aggressive panhandling generally involves the solicitation of donations in an intimidating or intrusive manner. Examples may include:

• Soliciting near ATM banking machines.
• Soliciting from customers inside a store or restaurant.
• Soliciting after dark.
• Approaching individuals from behind, as they are exiting their vehicles, to solicit.
• Soliciting in a loud voice, often accompanied with wild gesticulations.
• The use of insults, profanity, or veiled threats.
• Refusing to take “No” for an answer or following an individual.
• Demanding more money after a donation has been given
• Invasion of personal space, cornering, blocking or inappropriate touching.
• A “team” of several beggars approaching an individual at once, often surrounding the person.
• “Camping out” in a spot where begging negatively influences some other business (such as in front of a store or restaurant) in the hope that the business owner will give money to make the beggar go away.

I have instances for each one of this, experienced personally over my last 19 years.

India is not the only country with this problem. I love India, I love everything about it. But doing something about this could make things so much better.. The only good thing about all this is that they’re just begging and not thieves.

Where I want to be

WHERE I WANT TO BE (based on personal experiences)

I can’t wait to get back,

Back to where I want to be,

I just want to leave where I am,

And see the place I’d rather see.

I’m running away from here,

As fast as my feet can take me,

Away from the people I’m with now,

I just want to set myself free.

 

Its killing me now,

Even near is too far away,

I’m running, jumping, fleeting,

It’s farther than it ever was, I’ll say.

 

And as I turn the key and open that door,

Staring at the familiar tiled floor,

I realized there’s no place I’d rather be,

 

 

 

Than my toilet. I really had to pee.

Nothing

What does the future hold?

I sometimes wonder if all this time is leading up to something BIG or just plain empty nothingness. I would like nothingness, I think because everything is too much for me to handle.

From the time I was 2 cells old in a place so quiet and dark and peaceful, is that where I’m going back? Or is it going to be a place so crazy and filled with maniacs (a lot like my younger cousin sister’s birthday parties)?

I don’t know if you wonder, but I do. Sometimes drifting away into an alternate world where things are a lot simpler but so very different. I’m sitting in the library and studying about the Kreb’s cycle and the next minute, suddenly out of nowhere, I’m almost STUCK in nothingness, my head is chanting “THIS IS REAL!” over and over almost like I might forget if it wasn’t there to remind me. And I think of all the people around me in a flash of a second and wonder- Are they all real? And then I snap back into reality, all normal again. It’s almost as though an invisible hyponist is around me and dragging me away to some place I wish I knew and then swooshing me back.

Is this an indication of the place I’m coming from or where I’m going to, I don’t understand. It’s so beautiful, that feeling, but so scary at the same time. I just end up asking myself “Why this kolaveri?”

There are so many things about life and after that I’d like to know about, but that might just take the fun out of it, right? Let’s just keep it the way it is. A big secret under a pretty package with the bow hooked with the noose of, how to put it simply, death.

Mugdha <3

If someone asked the meaning of a friend,

It wouldn’t be too hard for me.

I’ve got the perfect person in mind,

Any guesses as to who that might be?

 

She’s someone who’s always been there,

Without expecting anything in return.

She’s always ready to apologise and forgive,

No matter how much it may burn.

For her, ego means nothing,

She’s ready to push it aside,

I respect her for that.

She puts friendship before pride.

 

We were different when we first met,

With completely different opinions from now,

It was back in third grade in Gita class,

We didn’t quite click then, I wonder how.

All through high school, we were “indifferent”-

And I say “indifferent” because I know how exactly you describe it,

We never really spoke much, I spelt your name wrong,

And I’m sure that annoyed “Mughda” quite a bit.

Then came the time of the Arabic dance,

And math tuitions and X-A,

We got closer and closer to each other,

More than words can say.

But just as things were starting to get too perfect,

Distance decides to show its ugly head,

Funnily though, it wasn’t as bad,

I’m happy to see, to what it lead.

We still met at tuitions,

Spent some of the moments, hard to forget.

Walking with hands entwined in the weirdest ways imaginable,

We’re as crazy as they get.

Be it the inside jokes like fire extinguisher,

Or the honest conversations that would have other people laugh till they cry,

Talking about people we love and hate,

The unimaginable names we call them by.

There had once been a time, a test,

We passed with flying colours,

Proving to me you were the best.

Anyone can stand by you when you’re right,

But it takes your best friend to stand by you even when you’re wrong,

It wasn’t over easy, it wasn’t over quick,

It took forever to get through it- quite long.

It’s funny how you cared more about me and less about you,

I realized you loved me more than I knew.

 

We’ve had our share of giggles,

From private jokes to private hotel rooms, *wink*

And right now, writing all of this,

Makes me miss you more than you can think.

 

Considering the short fuse I have,

You’re the strength to keep me from breaking,

I may fight with everyone,

But with you, I can’t really fight about anything.

 

There are way too many memories to write in a poem,

You’re surely worth way more than just this,

I wish I could see you right now, at least get a hug,

I hope you realize how much I miss

You right now.