Friday 13 January 2023

An Active Exercise In Trying To Feel Better

An active exercise in trying to feel better is to identify the antagonizing thought that's sitting in your head, like a crown of thorns. Put a pin on that thought, highlight it and let it stand out from the rest of the many things you may be thinking about simultaneously. 
Now let's strip it of any adornments that add any glamour or weight to this little bitch. Let's not romanticise what's already painful and/or uncomfortable. What is this thought based on? Is it based on real problems? If yes, then let's identify the problems and create solutions to each of them, one by one. 
If it's based on imaginary issues then let's write them down too, one by one, and prove why they're imaginary and not real. 
Once that is done, and we are faced with nothing but an incident or a sentence or a thought or a fear that has managed to plague our mind for so long, it is easier to fight and defeat this monster. We have objectified it, and facing it now feels far less intimidating. The fear of loss is smaller and more meek. 
For someone who has been afraid of numbers and is infamously a sufferer of dyscalculia, such objectification and numerification of problematic factors is strangely and ironically soothing. Once I see the numbers on the left hand side of the page and I know I have a list to turn to in order to smoothen things out for myself, I feel instantly stronger.
Try it sometime, it works. 

Tuesday 4 May 2021

Grateful To Be Alive

So what if the world is 
up in flames
I am quite grateful today
for a roof above my head that
shields me this morning
from this sudden cloudburst
that's drenched my town 
in working-class woes.
I am quite grateful today
for a hot coffee mug
as it warms my hands
that have gone cold off late
with anxious off-handed 
phone scrolling.
I am quite grateful for 
birdsong
despite my terrible ornithophobia
for it is sweeter than
the songs of loss.
I am quite grateful for this 
breath of fresh air from this 
clean, wet, promising morning
because at least it sustains me.
I am alive, much like these
mynah birds on the windowsill,
and I too will fly soon,
but until then, I am just
so, so grateful.

Thursday 18 March 2021

An Ode To My Son

Nobody taught me how to be 
a mother, except you,
my little cherubic child. 
I have learnt on the go,
like a painter flowing free
on a blank canvas-
guided only by impulse and art.
We pluck flowers and blow them
away
as the winds heat up with an 
impending Indian summer,
incubating within the belly of a monster
that I will fight tooth and nail
to keep you safe from,
but life isn't about being safe,
I don't want you to simply survive.
You are a king, my son;
born to rule hearts and lands
but mostly to rule your own destiny
and thrive.
As we sit cross-legged in the grass
today
like two friends with a secret,
I feel the sameness of our souls 
and the congruence of our hearts.
Again a wind blows
and I am filled with peace-
life feels lovely, like a song about
happiness.
A ladybird sits on my knee,
and you laugh;
we try to feed it weeds and twigs,
and I wonder if I have learnt 
exactly how 
to be a mother
because I feel a comfort now
that was missing before-
and I'm sure it comes only
from the love and applause you give me.
I feel like a mother-
my life's greatest victory.

Thursday 25 February 2021

Aspiration

There is something really special
about a couple that has grown old
together.
When you've been through
several summers, winters and storms 
together
and endured- sometimes also shined-
I am obliged to bow in front of them 
with respect and an envious form of 
admiration.
I want to grow old with my husband, too
and draw jealousy from youthful eyes 
when they see the warmth with which
we still hold hands,
and speak our own silent language
that no one else knows.
I want us to sparkle like a rare emerald
at a cocktail party 
that everyone looks at and gasps with awe,
but only the really lucky ones 
get to wear 
on luckier fingers 
that garland their lover's being.

Monday 22 February 2021

Endurance

Everyone will tell you
that you aren't enough;
you are insignificant and irrelevant-
a fat burden on the shoulders 
of those far more important;
"You ought to be grateful", they say.
But what about those dark nights
when it was your unfaltering flame
that kept their fire burning?
What about those times
when your trembling hands
held this house of cards
and kept it from crashing?
And what about the day 
when you bled copiously
so they could sleep on a bed of roses?
People forget the worth
of those who don't often announce it.
This world and this age 
have no regard for humility.
The graceful must live 
in a dark cage of silence. 

Lonesome

There was once a day
When we sat in the October sun.
You played with my hair
Like it was a violin string;
And I stared at your face
Like it was my homeland-
Your lips announced my existence
And your eyes decided the shape
Of my body.
Our hands were entwined 
Into a serpentine belt of 
Oneness. 
You held my dreams,
And I held your reality.
But the sun doesn't shine forever,
And October eventually melts away;
And today, all I'm left yearning for 
Is not poetry, is not the temperance
Of your everyday kisses,
It is you, in your opaque entirety.
Because I do not yet know how 
To not be loved by you,
And if I have my way, 
I'd prefer never to learn.

Thursday 11 February 2021

Motherhood

As I held your hot palm 
in the dead of a long night,
and your body tasted fever 
for the first time in your 
innocent, blessed life
I realised that real love 
was this.
Powerful, maternal, and consuming;
my prayers are couplets 
that I chant for you
and for your life to be 
a bed of beautiful, red roses
even if no human has had 
that good fortune yet.