In my 20s I wasted way too much trying to be pleasant. With age I have become more comfortable with not always being liked by everybody, and being more honest. I still find myself saying, ‘maybe,’ when what I really want to say is, ‘no.’ But life is too short to waste on being anything other than true to ourselves, and why would one not want to experience the sense of liberation that comes with speaking one’s mind.
This poem was written in response to a prompt on my writing group. Walt Witman wrote, ‘I contain multitudes.’ And now our grief is reflecting it too. Layers of grieving. Even as we all struggle with the pandemic, some of us are also fighting parallel, personal battles in our own little pandemic induced bubbles. Nothing will ever be the same again – a cliché but true. We have all lost our innocence, and every day I mourn for what could have been, even as I am grateful for what is. This poem is my attempt at depicting my grief for that loss, because I can begin to manage things, feelings and vague notions only, and only when I write it out.
I am what you call a 2 a.m writer. My best ideas for stories and dialogues come to me when I am slipping from one sleep cycle into the next. I groggily reach for my mobile and open OneNote to type in the idea. Sometimes it is just a sentence and sometimes a para.
Earlier I’d not get up and pin the idea down, certain that there is no way I could forget this gem. Come morning, all I could recall is that I had had a good, maybe even a brilliant idea, but I have no clue what it is. After the first two times of not being able to recall the ideas, and the resultant kick-your-own-ass anguish, I would just wake up and write the damn idea down. At least, I could now go back to sleep peacefully and wake up to something interesting.
Most of my 2 a.m ideas have done me good, except for this one time, when I had an idea to solve, and I mean SOLVE, the problems facing the world. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. I got up and typed in my solution and went back to sleep relieved that when I wake up the idea to solve all our problems will be there in my OneNote. Waking up, I opened the note, and my solution was just one word – Bananas.
I am sure it is a code. Or maybe we are all supposed to eat bananas. Go figure!
Would love it if you’d share your ‘Bananas’ idea :).
I have been busy focusing on completing what I hope is the final draft of my first novel. This basically means that I have let the blog slide. Apologies.
(Click on name link for all the poems written by me that Dubai Poetics has kindly featured.)
A half-remembered tune melts into me
I rise up trying to meet it… grab it
make it fully mine.
But the very acting of reaching
rips the melody out of my mind.
Just the ghost of it stays behind
to tease me with its unformed lines.
Haunted by a feeling, almost physical,
I hang on to sanity by slender threads.
There is a foreboding in my chest
vague in detail, yet precise in visceral sentiments.
Like waking from a nightmare,
heart pounding, drenched in sweat,
half-remembering the details.
But the very act of waking,
pulls the veils over the specifics
as they brush by teasing… warning
all in the same heartbeat.
If only I could capture the wretched poignancy,
the bleak terrain of my mind
and put it on paper.
Songs seem to be able to do it.
Other poets do it with ease. But I struggle.
The very act of putting pen to paper
robs the emotion of its very feeling.
‘It’s alright,’ I tell myself.
All I need is a good night’s sleep.
Not too long to sunrise, now.
I will bid the dark goodbye.
PAPER DREAMS 