INSCAPE

    To live is to be intrigued     By moments that pass by     And creatures that die     By multitude of meanings      And the bends of your own soul,     To live is sometimes to be a speck of paradox     In this universe of set truth.     My body often pretends to be something it's not     The soul never follows its paths.     The soul has a soul of its own     With a strong voice that echoes back inside the parched bowls of existence.     It never masks itself and continues to live.     The body feigns, and easily tires itself.     Pretensions are tiring while bends let loose     The real captives, pieces of the soul unchained.     My fierce soul sometimes breaks down     But gets up on its own to its blue dawns     Giving and forgiving, but never forgetting     The light that lies beneath ev...

    Humans are walking storehouses of pain untold.    The soul takes on many forms    A posture of solemnity,    A posture of brewing affection    And happiness that's infectious,    A posture of withheld laughter,    Cold smiles and hidden sneers of injustice felt;    Nevertheless, the form does not always reveal     The light of the soul or its darkness    Its breathtaking integrity or weeping essence.    Glitters do not always run deep    For true charm lies beneath the postures that the soul wraps itself with    Sometimes hiding the illuminating aura of the core.    We sometimes stumble upon the fascinating tinge of the crust,    The seemingly deep pores of unfilling light    Which may not always be what they look like.    There are folds in the human soul, just like clothes    Folds that look like mi...

    I love the birds that carelessly flock together through the sky     With nothing to hide     No facades or pretentious smiles that hide pain     Do they feel pain? Or is it just that they're too good at hiding it?     Maybe far better than human beings?     Without a smack of hurt in the beaks that never twitch but stay sturdy always.     I love the cat that does not care about the world     And sleeps its day off in the tattered verandas of indifference     Not having to care about anything     Without too many thoughts to shake its head off     With the ability to focus on a single thing, say, a prey     And sleep without regrets for the rest of the day     Or is it that they're too good at hiding the rush of thoughts that flood their mind?      Maybe far better than human beings?     I love slices of life that bring tears on to...

     Voices live rent-free in your head.     Some say, your worth is a hollow     Pit with nothing but fumes that stench.     Some say, you're being wronged     The whole being reduced to crumbling     Breaths and wrestles of strife     Exploding the heart into a million     Little pieces, once gone, nowhere     To find. Some go on singing, with     No halt, the tune that the wounds gave     Birth to, tainted in red, making the heart     A slave of its strings, strained and stubborn.     Some say, fight till the spirit dies     At the cost of everything, for the     People that love you, the rooms that give     You a space, the smiles that light you,     The rain drops that share your pain,     The words on a page that understand you,     The ears that listen, the music that consoles,   ...

         There lies a chasm at the end of this loop.     This continuous loop through which you're strung.     Sometimes, you slip through and fall without alarm     Sometimes, life topples you over in seconds     Pushing you to the endless chasm with a wiggle     This happens through and through     During moments of embarrassment     Of mockery, of subtle insults, of shouts and screams     Of being made to feel ignored,     Unknown and anonymous      As a being of no worth     Of mortifying words of disrespect coloured      In shards of rainbow colours      That gets thrown upon the little loop that binds you over.     Then there's another fall.     Wherein you fall into that chasm, not in slipping moments carved by strangers     But when you're dragged through and through     S...

     Shadows befriend her in     The chimes of the night     She sits on the staircase     Whispering   to  its shadows,      How it feels to be   a  complete mess;     How it feels to be unsteady     Not giving and taking     In measures of perfection;     How it feels to be a fluid     Rather than a fixed space of     Bricks huddled together,     Loving and living in measures,     Staying firm and sturdy,     With heads held high     Despite being stamped upon;     How it feels to be a river     An overflowing river that does     Not know to give in measures,     That giggles when stamped upon     Creating ripples of solace,     One that does not know how     To love with conditions- one     That is endless, going on and on ...

      I destroy myself in parts,     When pain takes me over     The nail ends crack in bits     And lips shed their skin     Spitting out dew drops of blood     That hold the redness of      The burning anguish within.     I want to escape and fly away     To chasms unknown and      Break the strings of memory.     I yearn to just escape and     Never come back to this      Deadly world of questions and     Answers, never-ending misunderstandings     Where people pretend to      Know their loved ones, but     Fail to understand them     Fail to acknowledge the other's pain     Fail to address the unaddressed     Where silence knits a thousand tents     Closed spaces, each far from the other.     This world where love is pain     And me...

      I fall into a heap, with pieces unsettled.     My veins crack     And thunderstorms play their strings     Broken, detached and wounded from within.     Through this explosion seeps in     Silent numbness, like an honest thief     Picking at the fallen crumbs of     Heaviness that stays despite its own weight.     Somebody's knocking at my door,     Waiting for a chance to get in     But I numbly keep my door closed     Scared to let the hurt in again     Scared to see my walls cracking     And moths eating up the crestfallen chests     That hide my deep insecurities     And hushed vulnerabilities     No more can I bear to wound the inner     Sanctums, perhaps by the same person,      Again.     One side of my heart's fighting this     Numbness, this stone cold dem...

      It's a serene evening in Gujarat.     Last time you visited, it was the      Numbness of your heart that     Held you back, from everything.     Now, it's the turbulent waves     Of overwhelming emotions     That attack you, punching      The face of your heart with a      Long blow, stooping it to     The roughness of the bare ground.     The bare ground of reality.     This anxiety that pricks the     Arteries and veins and stops     The red blood from seeping      In and out, this anxiety that      Is killing you in shreds.     This anxiety that's taking      Away any urge to eat or drink,     Leaving you cold before a      Hot plate of chicken legs.     Everything is serene,     Except your tormented pocket -   ...

      I love poetry.     I love "taking it slow",     I love slow-paced movies,     Evening walks alongside     The sun sliding into     A slow slumber, serene.     I love places where      "There is nothing really to see"     But winds deep,     Sheltering a slow paced song     For the ears that are ready to     Forget themselves in its chasm.     I love people who feel and fly     Who listen to the little whispers     Of the night and the light     Of the blue and the yellow     Who heed to the '"little things".     I love those hearts which     Fume like endless chunks      Of bloody red and black embers     At the sight of a fellow human     Being belittled, treated like     An unbodied carcass writhing     Amongst the sharp twisted...