They say the world does not need feminism!

First walls – the walls of the womb,
First halls – the halls of the hospital,
First falls – the falls through the tomb
that the ultrasound machine creates
within seconds – murder on the pedestal
of misogyny, a massacre whose tyranny
has left a trail of blood through history,
a monster whose vehemence is no mystery:
They say the world does not need feminism!

Attacks – on her attire, her desire, her fire,
Setbacks – of a victory they cannot fathom,
Drawbacks – of a rebellion that does aspire
to let the truth bellow sans doubt, with clout –
the truth that her body is hers to employ,
her choice is hers to deploy despite the ploy
that seeks to build a pyre for her dreams
and draw laughter from her screams:
They say the world does not need feminism!

Finality – this fight is for the forerunners,
Vitality – this light is for the present warriors,
Equality – this might is for the successors
who will sing the songs of our verve
whose nerve is annihilating the spirit
of those who serve the overlords of inequality,
and even if we are forgotten, it does not matter
as long as our sisters rise as one – together:
They say the world does not need feminism!

They say the world does not need feminism:
Of course, they would; Of course, they do.
Equality is not a slave to scepticism:
We shall continue this fight for our cause is true.

A familiar daily stroll.

The soil from the grave
he had collapsed against
refuses to leave his hands,
his heart, and his soul;

The wail of the wave
she had buried her grief
in continues to scar the lands
that had once been whole;

The lament of the slave
he has been reduced to
echoes through the sands,
defiling each cherished hole;

The ghost of the brave
being she had once been
mocks the bleak bends
of her path devoid of a goal;

The silence of the cave
that keeps their loss safe
perpetually weaves the strands
of a desolation darker than coal;

The peace they both crave
to somehow breathe again
mercilessly eludes the stands
where they wait sans a role;

How can one hope to save
a life which has lost a life
in the journey that pretends
to exact no substantial toll?!

How can one seek to pave
love, laughter, and life in a
spirit that truly understands
how inexorable is death’s pole?!

The silence of the cave
and the peace they crave
talk to them like the trends
spiralling in an unfamiliar roll;

The soil from the grave
and the wail of the wave
walk with them like the ends
of a familiar daily stroll.

Ode to sky!

From black to red, from red to blue,
oh, how effortlessly you don each hue
in the face of darkness and light aside,
through each dawn and unforgiving night,
never letting your faith be anything but true!
From blue to yellow, from yellow to black,
I saw you weep as you turned back
to look at me whilst I looked at you,
whispering words of deep solace
in the embrace of absolute silence:
What a surprise it was to behold
your aura adorned with a fiery gold
when all I had been seeing was black,
when my eyes seemed to have lost the knack
to seek hope amidst an irreparable crack,
when even verses could not drown
the anguish churning in my spirit,
when even solitude could not slay
the demons determined to hold me down;
We have been friends for far too long
for me to still discover shades so new
in your visage, hidden in the village
of the clouds that call you home,
the night that listens to each song
that you compose with all your heart,
the wind you cradle in your expanse,
the dawn you nurture with great expense,
yet to your versatility, there seems no end
as you shine beyond the reach of any lens,
as you revel with equal ablomb in
yellow, red, blue, black – the entire spectrum
being your ceaseless sea, your finite fence;
I have always been awed by the sight
of you carrying countless stars with a smile –
an infinite black specked with flickers
of white, but I must confess, old friend,
that the way the soft blue of the morn
seamlessly glues all that has been torn
is a phenomenon whose warmth is a virtue
only a few can hope to comprehend,
yet a force so magical no one can pretend
to be indifferent to its soothing view;
From blue to yellow, from yellow to black,
from black to red, from red to blue,
oh, how selflessly you mask each sigh
in the wake of bliss and grief aside,
through scarce peace and many a fight,
always keeping your head held high:
I bow my head in gratitude for every view,
for every hue you share with us, beloved sky!

To be alive!

No blame, no shame, no claim
of vice is cast on a tree when she
feeds her soul, heals every leaf,
soothes each branch sans a fee,
when she lovingly caresses her
roots, fiercely protects her family
without any conscious thought
driving her passionate actions
besides the truest, the greatest
love there was, is, or will ever be:
a love shackled by invisible chains
yet somehow infinitely free, the love
everyone knows and loves but few
can really own, keep, or even see –
the love for the self, the love that
is at once the rarest of creatures
and the most ubiquitous of rains;
When no blame, no shame, no claim
is cast on the tree for choosing
herself even as no one else does,
for protecting herself through
every storm, saving herself from
many a drought, loving herself in
sun and in shadow, why is the flame
of a love that needs no fuel, asks
for no assistance, thrives on its own
questioned when a human holds
it in her palm, cherishes it beyond
any and all possessions: the folds
of a love that is so whole nothing
and no one can hope to make it
more or less so, a love so pure
its iridescence knows no equal,
a love so sure no amount of doubt
can seek to penetrate its walls!
She chooses herself like the tree
does, puts herself at the top of
the list of priorities, trusts the halls
of her spirit before trusting anyone
else, treads the path that is true
to who she was, is, and seeks to be,
sings the songs of this rare loyalty,
unperturbed by the aspersions,
the labels, the envy, the names
they so casually employ to call
her selfish for the unforgivable act
of loving herself in a world where
loving oneself is such an alien
concept it petrifies those who
find themselves in its presence –
akin to a rendezvous with a monster
everyone has heard of but only
a few have seen, like a terrible fall
from which no recovery is possible;
She chooses herself not because
no one else does, nor to spite
anyone, but because to love herself
is to love life, is to be alive beyond
the breathing of her lungs, the
beating of her heart, the meeting
of her veins at the juncture of
their ends and their beginnings,
because to love oneself is so hard
yet so easy it is as if all roads
start from and lead to self-love,
as if every traveller finds a shelter
in the embrace of this soft glove;
The tree does not just survive
and nor does she: both thrive
adorned with the most elusive of
secrets ensconced within their
souls – the precious knowledge that
when you love yourself, that love
grows trees and hope even where
neither is supposed to flourish,
even when sunshine is scarce
and of joy there is a drastic dearth,
even when there is no love to spare
and every fear is brutally laid bare,
even when there is no hope to nourish.

Eternally one!

There is a pool in the forest of
my soul whence an ethereal light
emanates sans fuel or pause,
scattering hues of resplendent red
across the foliage, murmuring
songs of despair, of hope led
by the howls of the waning wind, fed
by the ghoulish ghosts of the past;
It is from this pool that I draw
the ink for my words, the bed
of all my musings, the cause
behind each instant of survival:
No surprise is it, I reckon, then
that this ink is as red as the blood
that nurtures me, tortures me, captures
me in the caring cage of oblivion –
the blood that is the ink, the ink
that is the blood, one as the sun
and the sunlight are, as the night
and the stars are, as the fight
and the scars are, one beyond
rationale, explanation, or segregation;
They say the writer chooses the words
with which to employ their ink, for
which to bleed even as they write,
but I think it is the words which choose
the writer with whom to joyously ignite
the fires inherently carrying the might
to burn water, turn blood into ink,
to discern the wrong from the right;
There is a pool in the forest of
my soul which will never run out
of blood, of ink as long as I think,
as long as I breathe, as long as I write:
The pool is me, I am the pool, eternally one!

Believe in each feather!

They try to pit us against each other
in a war we do not want to fight in:
“Who is prettier; Who writes better?”,
as if the possibility of our unity
is the abode of each nightmare
they make love to with impunity.
They aim to make us stand forlorn
on opposite sides of many a court:
“Whose are the best marks; Whose letter
is more beautiful; Who does fare
beyond compare in the incessant race?”,
as if the idea of our camaraderie
is the graveyard of each dream
they hold on to with utmost care.
They seek to cripple our ability
to choose positive over comparative:
“Who earns the most; Whose post
is higher; Who gets married the earliest;
Whose children are the cutest?”,
as if the existence of our freedom
is the noose whose innocent seam
they kneel to with utter vulnerability.
We cannot let them succeed in this scheme
for what drives us is every scream
of the women who walked before us,
the roots which submit to no kingdom,
the wings whose odyssey can scare
the worst of connivers into hiding.
“We are equal, not better than another;
We attain our best when we walk together!”,
as if the strength of each soul is the water
that waters an entire garden filled with corpses
and the living alike, lending them hope
to keep flying through every weather,
sending them courage to believe in each feather!

Ode to Time!

Oh, you shape-shifter, you illusionist,
you wizard, you artist, tell me how is it
that you are as seamless as the expanses
of the horizon whilst being as fractured
as each speck of dust in a room dimly lit?

Oh, you omniscient, you iridescent,
you evanescent, you eternal, why is it
that you allow me to traverse the depths
of your empire on occasion whilst being
a resolute guard the other times I visit?

Oh, you benevolent, you maleficent,
you transparent, you enigmatic, what is it
that you do to keep some moments
as fresh as the first flowers of spring
whilst being a murderer leaving the rest split?

Oh, you rule-keeper, you nonconformist,
you revolutionary, you traditionalist, when is it
that you stop playing from both sides
of the chessboard whilst being a mere
spectator in the hourglass’s ceaseless skit?

Oh, you warrior, you peacekeeper,
you tempest, you silent myth, where is it
that you store all the secrets of your
immortal existence whilst being the
conduit of every soul that is in transit?

The lies we tell, the smiles we sell.

A chasm deep, dark, dangerous
floats with abandon amidst an
act which appears so real it causes
the art of acting to blush – adorned
with a bleeding, glowing flush:
The curtains never fall for they
never did rise, yet the raging rush
ever present, ever potent never pauses
in its pursuit of putting up a front
glistening with light and laughter, lush
like the first fruits of spring – beyond glorious
the way they bloom in the wake of
mourning brutal, indescribable losses –
The act we excel at sans any effort,
the act we keep up come noise or hush,
the act we survive on, thrive on, sacrifice for
until its limbs are so intertwined with
those of reality, dancing in eerie harmony,
that it ceases to be an act, until the face
we see in the mirror is but a mirage
of our true self, a facade in the race
to prevent the truth from ever breaking
through the surface of the ocean of lies,
until the honest, loyal, inherent voices
get buried in our throats, overpowered
by fake smiles masking the sighs
so brilliantly no one can discern the joke
being enacted in collective complicity:
Ah, the lies we tell, the smiles we sell
with such grace that there remains no trace
of the grieving graves of the wounds
we hide – the blood yearning to well
up from the walls of the cage guarded
by many a lock, onerous to unlock,
pleading to escape the haunting hell
where almost every one responds to false mirth
but to no avail is a truthful, painful yell!
No drama schools, no acting classes
decorate the shelves of our souls’ glasses,
but, oh how we perform every single
ballad, stage the most difficult of plays,
recite tales of hope to everyone’s shock,
dance through hurricanes which mock
the lack of sincerity, reality, and finality
in our performances so strong yet fragile
as to be believable and incredible in equal
measure, so well practised yet so amateur
as to be lauded and censured in the same breath,
so transparent yet so glaringly contrived
as to simultaneously arouse disgust and pity –
But this pity cannot possibly be greater
than the one we feel towards ourselves
when we realise we are no better than a traitor
trading their soul for a place in the theatre
which never runs out of shows, chasing
a hollow dream, seeking acknowledgement,
acceptance, and induction in a club
where every one is a vessel for a bubble
of denial and delusion which has no ending –
the pity we experience when we lie
to the mirror, sell a smile to the rubble
of our sorrow, cheating it of its right
to trouble
us, robbing it of its might to incite
agony, anger, and fear, but what for
is this act, why do we succumb to this treachery?!
Are we so afraid to greet our demons
like old pals that we would rather pretend
that they do no exist at all, let alone in legions?!
Is the pull of belonging to an ever happy
group in a factitious picture so insurmountable
as to compel us to live in denial of the reasons
which make us vulnerable, which make us human?!
Maybe there are no unique answers to questions
this complex, but there are answers for each
of us if we can make peace with the night,
recognising it is as worthy as the light
following in its wake, understanding
that tears and fears are as much a part
of who we are as laughter and courage,
accepting that vulnerability is not a fault
but a virtue, one that lends us strength,
celebrating the chinks in our armours as
friends who never depart even when the fabric
of happiness surrenders to unforgiving weather,
rejoicing in the company of reality, solitude,
hopelessness, hopefulness with gratitude
at being able to feel, see, hear, express
the emotions, the scenes, the voices, the fears
the world would prefer to stifle with its claws.
Ah, the lies we tell, the smiles we sell
have a price, one which we end up paying
with that which is too precious to spend,
the scars of this ceaseless act are
difficult to mend:
It is easier to be real than it is to pretend
for the mirrors inside our souls can discern
the real from the forged despite their skilful blend.

I hope I never have to.

To my sister,

If I were to ever lose you,
I would not know what to do.
The day you arrived in my life
with the rays of infinite stars
in your tiny, innocent eyes,
too young was I to realise
what you would come to mean
to the core of my being,
how you would become
the only one I would turn to
in hope, joy, sunshine, and rain,
why you would be more to me
than the label the blood we
share could ever reveal;
Some days, we spend hours
in conversation – the kind
that does not need an invitation,
whilst other days, the silence
of our souls does suffice,
rising above the loudest noise
to soothe, to heal, to mend
everything the world breaks
without mercy or compassion;
My secrets find peace in
the abode of your heart,
never meant to depart
the sacred halls so kind,
even when the tempests of
fury make me lose my mind:
When my words wound you
and yours are like a dagger
to my soul, the grief we find
sans a quest makes me feel
that no amount of pride can
outweigh the loss of your voice,
no level of hell can be worse
than the agony of losing you –
So, the stock of my apologies,
rarely put to use, seems ever
inclined to make an appearance
when the intended recipient
is you, as if under an invisible
spell, bound by an intangible rope,
surrounded by an emotion
time cannot hope to sever;
Today, I saw someone losing
her sibling to an accident
in a narrative that was fictional –
It is not as if this is the first time
such a thing has come to pass
in life or in art, and yet it gave
me pause, made me wonder:
How do sisters bury sisters,
How do sisters say farewell,
How do sisters carry on
when the ties of sisterhood
are covered with death’s hood?!
How does a sister survive
losing a piece of her soul,
one that did not merely
make her whole but meant
more than the oxygen that
makes her breathe and thrive?!
As my tears, my fears drive
this musing without rhyme
or metre, devoid of conscious
thought or deliberate action,
raw, real, rhetorical, repetitive,
this terrible thought is haunting
the horizon of my heart:
If I were to ever lose you,
I would not know what to do.
I would be a ghost walking
this earth, wandering aimlessly,
howling mindlessly, grieving
endlessly, searching recklessly
for the voice, the smile,
the silence, the words, the fury,
the hope, the peace, the light
that lit my path without trying
to, and yet it would not be enough;
If I were to ever lose you,
Oh, what would I ever do?!
As selfish as this sounds,
I strengthen an old vow –
if you go where I can follow,
I would fight to make amends,
till the clasps of death take me
captive, till the last of my energy
abandons me, till the hollow
transience of the chasm
between us is swallowed
by forgiveness, love, and hope,
but if you go where I cannot
come seeking you – and oh,
how the very thought cripples
me – I would not know life
as life, joy as joy, grief as grief,
love as love, strife as strife –
I would not know what to do,
and yet this is certain, that
you, my dearest friend, will sue
each echo of hope and every
sliver of light that makes
the most abominable of faults
seem like the kindest virtue;
If I were to ever lose you,
I would not know what to do,
so, I hope I never have to.
I hope I never have to.

“Would it have cost to trust?!”

She saw a dawn brimming with each colour
on the spectrum while he perceived
merely the extremes, black and white,
until her faith eclipsed the blinds
holding his captive, and let him discover
the wild glory of the hues of life’s light;
As their paths collided, a gift like no other
they bestowed upon each other, that of trust –
unyielding in the face of wrong and right,
until their demons came to the surface
to shatter every last piece of the anchor
they had believed would survive every fight;
All attempts to make amends were to no avail –
for what is once broken cannot be repaired
without the reminders of promises reduced to dust –
until the path they had carved together saw
them walking away with no hope in sight
of ever having the sun follow so final a night;
Years passed, or seconds perhaps, till time,
in all its fickle beauty, made their paths cross,
giving them pause as the scars of the rust
they had fed with mistrust made them flinch
as if the wounds had just been inflicted –
the anguish mocked their recovery’s might;
As they stood shocked by the vehemence of
what had been to still cripple them so, they mused:
“Would it have cost at all to trust
that you so easily chose to doubt?!
Would it have hurt to fearlessly uphold
the unspoken vow we meant to never flout?!”;
There were no questions, nor answers
for how could there be any in the wake
of the tempest they had put each through
when every shade of the horizon thus polluted
would have come to their rescue had they
not let their trust succumb to doubt’s blight!

This is inspired by art and life alike! Trust is the most important gift one can bestow upon another, and where there is a tree of trust, how can doubt plant its seeds?! Yet, sometimes we let the former surrender to the latter, causing us guilt and regret. And when that happens, how can we ever learn to trust again?! How can we ever forgive ourselves for failing to keep someone’s trust safe and/or someone else for breaching our trust?! I believe it is only when we appreciate and respect how sacrosanct trust is that we can strive to never let it lose, no matter what the cost.