Shadows

How do you manage to keep going
without the urge to throw yourself
away?
How does it feel like hearing everything
but your own heart?
Does it really get better with time?
Do layers of skin mange to cover it all?

Tell me how you escaped the pit
of rusty flowers decorating
humnae need of art,
Is there a way to escape your shadow?
Have you made peace with it all?

Deep down, in your heart
does it shine bright like the day?
Or is it pretty like the sky?
If you smiled bright
and visited be places
Would it matter?

Tell me,
Does it get better?
Tell me,
Is there any way out?

© 2021 mermaidspen

30 of 60

Most foolish act is to break down a minute. Time seems to be the most visible truth, unbiased and irrational or it’s engulfed by the past yearning for tomorrow?
For half a second, I’ll let the grief leave and try to look for good, for they say, you find happiness when you look for it. It can be true. We all want good. When we find it, we embrace the shadows and hold on to them, tight.
But grief? It’s not that hard to find it, You see. It’s always in the air as there’s no place for sadness in the bones. We hurt ourselves to merely fool ourselves, by building this wall of ‘soul’s pain’. We pretend not be bothered by whatever is outside.
But, what’s the point of killing pain with pain? Point of killing 30 of 60 seconds over what will always linger after another 30 of 60 (seconds/minutes)?
Every second I feel myself engulfed by the second that passed and the one yet to come, I’m stuck in time.
Is this what we call living!?
What if we were built this way? All of us? Can desire justify it or do I have to look for the synonyms of ‘escape’?
Desire is like air, it’s always there.

Most of the times we are unaware. We’re all stuck here, who said life is fair?

Gods are dying in my country.

Centuries ago, during the
course of evolution, humans
brought the whole species
together, on the base of
One belief system; Religion.
We thrived. They say nothing lasts
forever; humans have this obsession
with change,
To know more, To be more.

And now ( fast forward to ‘I’ )
As ‘act of God’
I see my country moulding
beliefs of generations.
God has now become a tool
To control masses; we are given a
Reason to be scared of the sacred.
I see them locked in fancy buildings
like you and me, having 
‘no right to speech’, worse,
they can’t even speak because
no one is actually asking them.

/I used to think/
I’m an atheist/
but lately/ I have started to
believe otherwise/ like y’all/
I too have a holy book/

My God is as panicky and breathless
as yours. I watch TV
till my heart starts aching,
I clutch the Constitution
close to my flesh, with hopes
of lending some air to it;
I hear him suffocating.
Then I sleep to the weeping
sound of my God (Constitution);
who cries with all the other Gods
because Gods are dying in my country.

Prompt by Samyak

© 2020 mermaidspen

//Touch has a memory//

I have been pretty transparent, if you’re really looking.
On my skin, you could see the boy with hazel eyes
with softest curls and the way,
he is touching my skin just by looking,
You can feel the metaphors
running along my hair
to your fingers;
you can sense the memories
curling up your hand.
Will remind you of the last kiss
or I’ll fill your heart with clichés;
you always fall for it.

Let me tell you stories about disasters and disappointment running deep down under my wrist, in my veins;
If you touch me for a bit longer, you’ll be able to sense the thunders;
touches, devastating enough to burn down the entirety.
But there’s nothing scarier than skin that feels nothing at all.

If I tell you,
consent in love is a funny thing
between the flashback of millions of memories and disruptive silence
in your eyes, you’re lost, believe me.
Once you touch,
there are no more may l’s.

And what about the veins under my skin that still tremble
at slightest touch because there are memories buried underneath me.
You look for justifications on my wrist,
all the longer-than-usual touches,
I’m wearing under my sleeves.

I know you’d believe me crying myself to sleep and how miserable the year has been.

But,
would you believe me
If I tell you,
An unwanted touch can send chills down the man’s spine
when you try to pull him closer after every “no”?
There is always a ” be a man” ready to slip from your tongue.
Can you ever forgive yourself in the name of humanity,
in the crowds shouting for justice while you’re the 5/10 culprits;
for stealing a moment that was not yours; thinking a smile to be a consent or never asking for it?
You know there won’t be any going back for him.
If there was a slight voice of complain,
it’s always easy to be a victim than to take responsibilities.
Funny how you always get away when they’re the ones sulking in pain.

And what about when a man tells you he was molested, would you believe him or say, “must’ve been fun?”

Collaboration with Bharath

© 2020 mermaidspen

//Love is Love//

Words will leave me
at the end of this poem
just like your love
left societies and hearts
day by day or
maybe it was never there.
Maybe I am too delicate.
Breathing before I suffocate.
Am I too slow
to cope up with the
mornings, days and seconds?
But I still am very receptive
towards love, affection
and the foundations of
your faiths and religions.
Everyday I hear lips
shouting “love is love”
but see them denying the same
when it’s time to act.
They let their opinions
slip into air
infecting people,
disheartening the minds
(Sometimes people are
The virus)
Being homosexual or
transgender is no crime;
world needs to stick to love
instead of a gender,
one part of world is on roads,
angry, hurt
and you’re telling me
to deny unlearning
because what you have
been taught is not wrong.
Stop shouting ” we’ll take care
of you, get you checked”
let the people be who they are.
We have so much to learn yet,
we have to go far.
And sooner or later
I’ll find the words which left
but, can you find the love
you threw out of your windows?

Prompt by Meera

© 2020 mermaidspen