The silent sacrifice!

They fall – not always with grace, 
nor with gaiety, in the face of their 
inevitable rendezvous with death;
But fall they do, adorned with pride, 
glowing a fiery yellow and red that shines 
brighter than the sun’s unparalleled visage.
As they tumble, their brave descent is greeted
by the mother most kind: there is no escaping 
her selfless love, her warm and firm embrace;
She tells them she waits for these moments 
the whole year round, with bated breath.
As she soothes their wounds with a lullaby 
new yet old, they somehow forget
the pain scarring their souls: a new hope
begins to rise, drowning every regret;
For when they were one with the sky, 
they could scarcely have fathomed this fall 
may lead to a journey fresh, or that courage 
could make a garland out of the darkest rope;
But autumn has taught them how very wrong 
they had been to never imagine that the end
is also a beginning – each fall a way to rise!
Only when the leaves find inexplicable solace
in the earth’s womb do they truly realise 
that though their hues may have married change, 
the colours inherent in their spirit shall never
wane as the seasons turn the hourglass around;
It is then that they start to cherish the fall 
that fall brought forth in their lives:
for had they not tasted the fear of the unknown, 
the victory in defeat they would not have met. 
As they find peace in the wake of this tempest, 
they feel the wind, their cousin and friend, 
whisper the tidings of the path they are to take;
Death bids them adieu, fear looks them in the eye, 
then says “May thy flight be as enlightening 
as this beautiful fall oft misunderstood!”, hoping 
they will never forget the lessons autumn so
effortless does teach – to keep holding on
even when the hope in your heart says goodbye. 
With the smile that nurtures all that exists, 
their mother parts with them, sans anguish, 
letting them take flight once again, borne 
by the harbinger of change, the wind, so they may try
to tell everyone who sees or hears their story
that graves are often seeds for revival – 
failure is as transient as the shadow that covers 
the hope in every heart every so often, 
but passes, making way for a spark of survival. 
As the leaves cross the bridge held by
death and life, the twins separated yet linked, 
somewhere in the vicinity, autumn sheds a tear, 
for though in her garb of black and decay, 
she may never be as loved as her sister, 
the one who dances amidst flowers and growth, 
she will never cease to love leaves others 
call dead and water gardens which noone goes near;
It is not love she craves – fickle as it is, 
nor does spring’s universal glory cause her envy.
For the fall does not live for poems or songs:
she knows her place is behind the curtains, 
her spirit is aglow with the colours that fuel 
each leaf, flower, stone, and soul there is!
How can the lack of adoration beguile
one so brimming with love as her?! 
She sprinkles light sans fanfare, her cause
is to plant hope where there is none – 
without recognition she carries on with a smile. 
Her tear is one of pride as the leaves traverse 
the path she paved: not yellow anymore, 
yet as beautiful to her as when they fell. 
When the leaves find a new abode, their spirit sings
of the courage of the yellow and red, 
the beauty of their former death bed, 
of the silent sacrifice the fall makes 
to give darkness light and the wingless wings; 
Autumn smiles in their exuberance, content 
with being in the shadows, colouring life, 
even as the world paints her in black, 
unbeknownst of her kaleidoscopic intent. 

How fine is “I am fine”?!

“I am fine; there is nothing to worry about!”,
echoed her cheerful reply when her mother
asked her whether she was feeling stressed. 
She said so sans any forethought, as if it was
commonplace to lie, almost on autopilot. 
For she was not fine at all – she was anything but, 
with her very soul stampeded by many a doubt. 
The walls that guarded her spirit from the elements 
kept threatening to collapse until all that remained 
of her existence was mere memory suppressed. 
Her skin was in open rebellion, refusing 
to let her feel safe in the confines of her own body, 
yelling at her to accept that she was not fine. 
Accept this she did, with great pain and courage, 
but only to herself, for telling those she loved
that she was depressed seemed an idea so alien 
that the only concession, the only confession 
she submitted to was her sacred journal. 
The words poured out, or were they her tears, 
or her spirit crying out in desperate agony, pleading 
for help, for someone to lend a kind ear?! 
She wrote, broke, was lost yet found within the verses- 
the tears stopped; the words healed; she 
made it through the battle, ready to fight another. 
When her mother called the next morning, 
repeating the same query, she replied merrily:
“Yes, Mama, do not worry. I am absolutely fine!”. 
Her words saved her: the diary became her
oxygen mask, for when she could not breathe, 
it lent her air by listening to the tempests raging 
within her, by harbouring the storms into its pages. 
She kept wondering whether one day she could 
tell someone how she had assaulted the word fine, 
without having them laugh it off or judge her.
She wonders to this day, and the answer is still elusive.

“I am fine; what could possibly be wrong with me?!”, 
came his swift reply when his mother 
asked him if he was dealing with any distress. 
He knew that speaking the truth would cause
her pain and worry, so he lied sans any regret. 
For he was so far from fine it was a cruel joke
to pretend that he was, whilst lost in unnavigable debris. 
The hopes that adorned his dreams kept turning into 
shackles, suffocating him from within until 
the colours waned into darkness, devoid of any address. 
His spirit was falling apart, surrendering 
to the ceaseless nightmares of what could’ve been, 
beseeching him to accept that he was not fine. 
Accept this he did, after much denial and rage, 
but only to himself, for conveying to those who loved him 
that he was depressed felt like an impossible 
endeavour – one he didn’t see fit to even contemplate:
no concessions, no confessions he dared make. 
His thoughts befriended masks; his soul became
a graveyard of lies and false smiles so convincing 
no one saw him breaking piece by piece into nothing. 
He crumbled, then stood up, only to crumble again – 
with no hope in sight, no rope so tight as to 
carry the weight of his soul brutally torn asunder. 
When his mother called the next morning, 
her question a mirror of the usual one, he said with gusto:
“Yes, Mom, I am fine. I’ve never felt better!”. 
His words became his tomb: his refusal to talk
even to himself made him a prisoner within his own body, 
for when he wanted to scream, he whispered, 
until one day the whispers choked him into silence. 
He kept wondering, while taking the pills, what if 
he had chosen to, difficult as it seemed, talk to someone, 
without having them possibly mock or dismiss him. 
His mother wonders to this day, his grave is her sepulchre. 

When you are feeling that everything is spiralling out of control, and that there is no hope left, kindly talk to someone, even if that someone is yourself. It really helps to talk about, to write of, and to express what is troubling you. And please, for everything that you hold sacred, listen to anyone who speaks to you about their state of mind. One conversation can save a life, light up a seemingly dark path, and lend a helping hand to someone who feels crippled by their present circumstances. I shall try to do both: express and listen. This poem does not encourage and/or glorify suicide and self harm. It is merely a reflection on how the paths we choose when at a crossroads can impact everything that happens after said choice. I hope that we do not write off our inner fears and demons as fantasy. And I hope we all choose to fight our demons, and help others fight theirs.

The only eye that matters!

“I’m a real person, so don’t delete me, Instagram;
I can’t post my picture here because I’m too ugly.”,
wrote the holder of one of the fan accounts
I follow on that island of pictures – the Gram.
What struck me first about said post
was the loose and casual use of the word ugly –
as if the writer considered it a universal fact,
incontrovertible and worth a resigned toast.
Utterly shocked I was to realise that they had
been constrained by the abstract standards of beauty
which drive each action based on the expected response,
forcing the believer to play an unwilling host
to a personality who judges themself as not being
equal to their peers – as being found and yet being lost.
Upon further musing, I came face to face with
arguably the most brutal truth of this golden age:
that we live in a world oft inexplicably inhumane –
one which takes beauty being in the eyes of the beholder
to a whole other dimension, causing chasms
in the self-esteem of their soul beautiful and divine –
which was once unconfined, soaring through the skies,
a soul now trapped by seemingly omnipresent ideas of perfection,
perhaps exacerbated by loved ones being noninclusive.
“Who is to blame?” I ponder, or is there any point
in passing the buck, since we are all a party to
this massacre of self belief, this carnage of hope?!
For if we all believed in being sensitive and respectful,
wouldn’t we do more healing than cause hurt?!
If we subscribed to the notion of holding back judgements,
would we not save many a soul  – young and old – from
falling down a bottomless hole, just for our momentary mirth?!
This is not merely my story, neither is it just yours:
it is ours – our cross to bear, to somehow resolve
to metamorphose from being cruel to being kind, so as
to set our fellow souls free, and to let ours fly
before unfounded judgement makes things worse.
When I hear Alessia Cara sing those relevant lyrics
in the masterpiece that is ‘Scars to your beautiful’,
stating “And you don’t have to change a thing,
the world could change its heart.
No scars to your beautiful, we’re stars and we’re beautiful!”;
when I see Pink telling her six-year-old daughter
that she is beautiful, that she doesn’t need to change –
the world needs to change and see more kinds of beauty;
when I see people owning up to who they are
with pride, courage, and a zest for life;
it gives me hope for a world where we can all
value each other as we are, not as what we should be-
‘Should be’ is such a toxic, relative concept, isn’t it,
necessitating an incredibly unnecessary strife?!
It reiterates my conviction that when I repeatedly tell
that friend of mine who thinks they are fat and ugly
that they are not defined by either of those adjectives, or any,
that there are many like me who do the same –
who make their voices count to save lives,
who speak out to prevent emotional ruin –
or so I hope, and so I wish, and so I pray!
Because in a scenario where everything is pigeonholed,
when all that exists – alive or inanimate –  is labelled
and marked like traders do goods to sell,
it takes but one conversation, one person who cares,
to find the time and willingness to soothe someone’s wounds –
to let them know, sans any doubt, that they are
not fat, skinny, dark, fair, ugly, worthless or weak:
those labels are mere slips of paper written by the same people
as us: who, for some reason or inadvertently,
hatred, judgement, and sadism do seek.
We can unwrite what they’ve written: there is no dearth of erasers;
Just know that you are beautiful in your own way,
yours is the eye beholding that beauty, the only eye
that matters; do not ever let it fall for the phasers!
Do not believe your soul depends on approvals
to be called brilliant, beautiful, or otherwise;
For there is that within you that shines sans any flame,
that radiant inherent light shall always suffice!