Red.

Red like the flames of a fiery fire,
Red as the fumes of a funeral pyre,
Red akin to the iris of an eye
ruled by grief’s merciless empire –
The kind of red that nurtures life
sans any claim, blame, or sigh,
whilst traversing the contours
of each haunting hope and desire;
With a hue unmatched by another,
alive or inanimate, you are a ghost
that is at once a foe and an ally;
You bruise, then heal, only to wound
again with the precision of a killer
who holds nothing sacred nor shies
away from betraying a trusting host
without the aid of a gun or a knife;
They tell me not to speak of you
or acknowledge your existence,
as if denying you live and thrive
every second that I am alive
would somehow turn the truth untrue,
as if a red as vibrant as you
can be restrained by the chains of a taboo,
for you are an innate part of me,
dear wretched blood, stabbing
cruelly the body you call your abode:
I can feel, smell, hear, and see
the massacre you leave in your wake
every time you visit like clockwork,
adorned with the wrath of a vengeful
lover determined to burn me at the stake;
How can I hide the pain you cause
or the way you turn a sneeze into
a riot of red, attacking the lake
of strength and courage I protect
with my whole spirit, or the shadow
you cast on the horizon of my heart?!
And even if I could, why should I part
with the right to articulate your treachery?!
For this civil war is my battlefield,
one where I repeatedly stand tall,
to rise like a phoenix after each fall,
whilst they label this fight imaginary
despite glaring evidence to the contrary;
Red like the rays of a million suns,
Red as the shots of countless guns,
Red akin to the blood in my veins
determined to challenge me at all turns –
The kind of red that hones hurt
sans any shame, apology, or lie,
whilst waging a never-ending war
within its home, laughing while it burns.

Growing trees in our souls.

A smile lights up her visage
as she utters each word with
measured grace, as if the cage
she is seeking to hide from sight
can be easily written off as myth,
as if the act of painting her body
with the colours she is supposed
to heartily feel and embody
would somehow shadow the pain
she is trying so hard to fight;
She thinks I do not see or know
the form and colour of her sorrow –
I wait for her to shed the mask,
deeply aware how difficult
is the seemingly simple task;
A battle lights up her visage
as she talks to her mother,
exchanging many a mean insult,
a vengeful veil concealing the rain
devastating her spirit with spite,
as if the act of spewing venom
would erase the words written in
indelible ink on every page
of her soul, as if the speeding train
moving towards her sans mercy
would suddenly screech to a halt
at her mirage of indifference;
She thinks her creator is oblivious
to the disguises she expertly wields,
unaware that her veil is transparent
to the one who can hear and feel
her every sigh as if it were her own;
I wonder where she gets the
masks from, for there seems
to be an endless supply of those
travelling with her like an army
of friends wherever she goes;
I wonder whence we all procure
our particular brand of veils,
for there must be but few
amongst us completely free
of the addiction to this maze
of denial, of pretence, of hope,
of delusion that we vehemently
abhor yet passionately crave;
Perhaps there are lush fields
cultivating the unique yet common
armour that has entranced
an entire species with its charm
so much so that its innocent rope
is threatening to choke the breath
out of our lungs to casually harm
the very beings it pretends to protect;
She knows, as do we, that the wage
we pay to the masks we employ
is too little to lend them comfort
of any sort or to prevent them
from resorting to a coup or a ploy
to undo the seams keeping us
whole, to raise swords against
the sanctity of our unwritten pact,
to make us prisoners of their farm;
I wonder if keeping up this charade
is rational or advisable or even sane,
considering what is at stake
is too precious to carelessly bet
in exchange for a temporary respite
from altercations – a fleeting gain:
for what is at stake is who we are
when the masks, the veils, the disguises
rest in peace in the womb of the night,
what we want to feel, express,
and display with a torch so bright
it can eclipse the sun’s might;
How can we possibly risk that
which is so pure, so untamed,
so adorned with love and rage
merely because the world teaches
us to create, nurture, and flaunt facades?!
How can we let fake smiles discount
our struggles or crafted politeness disarm
our verve unmarred by words or age?!
How can we surrender a reality
glowing with wounds and wins alike
to the treacherous halls of a cage?!
A wisdom lights up her visage
as she looks at herself in the mirror:
raw, unmasked, wild, real, and free
to be who she is, to say what she
feels, to do what she wants, to burn
the entire crop of the masks
so when she makes a turn
to the path she wishes to tread,
the light in her eyes, the smile
in her spirit, the flame in her bones
is not a fragile disguise anymore:
As she walks free, so do I, so do we,
for one broken chain frees another
the way the winds sing in harmony,
like the fall of one brick causes
its adjacent bricks to fall in the
celebration of a twisted camaraderie,
for the masks do not possess
any power until we let them see
the holes where they can reside:
I wonder if we are determined,
what could stop us from growing
trees in those holes so the masks
cannot escape the dense forests
of our will, our drive, our hope,
our courage, our well earned victory.

Her own person!

A daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother –
labels to pigeonhole her seamless existence
to the threads she shares with another,
as if she could be defined by the roles
she defines with her spirit unmarred by holes.

She is the storm that makes storms take pause –
wild, uninhibited, unique, unabashed,
proud of her scars, revelling in her flaws,
not because she is somebody to someone,
but because she is infinitely more – her own person!

The storm that makes storms take pause.