Six Short of Six

 

It’s six short of six 

He said

Something wrong 

He said 

You’re not you 

He said 

We both knew it 

In our hearts

It was time 

To bid away our time 

Because it would never be 

The time 

That we wanted it to be 

It is six today

So much to have been said 

Yet nothing 

Only this world 

With the bottle of whiskey half done

With the pillowcase half crinkled 

With the mirror half hand-stamped 

Me - halved 

And this world 

I find so hard to step out of 

I keep gripping my skin 

In the places he did 

So the marks wouldn’t leave

Because everything else did 

His words 

His gaze

His promises

He 

They ask me 

What was so extraordinary

Was it in the ways he loved you 

Or in the ways he didn’t 

Neither 

It was in the laughter 

Only we could laugh - together

It was in the words 

Only we could comprehend - together

It was in the rituals 

Only we knew to show up for - together 

And yet

It was in knowing 

When he said 

I’ll wait for you

That we’d both be waiting 

And wanting 

Forever

For a forever

That was never going to be 

Some would say I stole 

I would say I borrowed 

A little time

A little trance

A little tranquility 

To last a lifetime

This world 

We called ours 

Till about six short of six 

.d

The Lost Words

Staring at the blinking bar

Wondering how the tides have crossed

with much done and undone

much found and lost 

much said and silenced

much surfaced and drowned

Thought words decided to stay in the world where the pen was last put to paper

But as being sought was a corner with a lull

in the depths of sighs 

Rinsing through the muck of all the noise of the much 

There lay beneath the pile 

My words waiting, 

with half a smile of understanding

with arms extended for an embrace of knowing

with eyes that spoke straight to the soul

with the voice of the birdsong at the break of the dawn,

to come back to me...

.d

  

Question

Do, what shall we, to cease to question 

Why this all matters 

The race of egos 

The clash of expectations

The need for compromises 

The needlessly needful complication of existence.

Do, what shall we, to cease to question

Why are ourselves so hard to explain

Aspirationally so away from convention 

Our demons riding over our angels

Yet, us placing over them, a hand of harmony 

Do, what shall we, to cease to question

Why does their necessity shine in sacrosanctity 

While ours shadows in servitude 

As we wage suppositious wars 

To step up to demand and equate 

Only to extinguish them, with our lull

Do, what shall we, to cease to question 

Why we can’t be looked at for who we are 

Over being critiqued for who we could be

As we put in our greatest to bare our souls 

Only to become slaves of the images that they built of (for) us

Do, what shall we, to cease to question

Why they would only lend us a ear 

To hear, never listen 

To slander, never sympathise 

Up until then, that our voices lose life, our words - their meaning

Do, what shall we?

Cease to show? To see?

Cease to talk? To listen? 

Cease to feel? Be felt? 

Think?

Trust?

Question? 

Don’t Call Me Home

For there wait the winds of my past to

Engulf me yet again to relive

Stories that left me bruised 

Deep within where

Even the rays of healing fade

For there lies the fragrance of 

The oil of the lamp that burned 

When in harmony, my dreams burned along

Moment after moment for

A myriad sleepless nights 

For there stay conversations that

Have floated over the pyres of 

Abandoned promises of monumental loves that 

Once added life to life 

Only to have created a mirage of nothingness

For there haunt the 

Dark and deserted shadows of 

Who I used to be who 

I wish I could go back to being who 

I must though never become

...don’t call me home

— Divya Rathi

The Crimson of Dusk

Against a bustling life
A howling mind
The world moans
With dismay of defeat
Poverty of content
And tears of separation

I watch
With hands, folded
And vision, blurred
Thinking, and sinking
With fright and apprehension
Could my world be at stake too?
I lift my head
To spot the heavens
With a vision, still blurred
Yet a conscience, immaculate and clear

I watch
What doesn’t need clarity of vision
Only thought and intent
The crimson of dusk
A spectacle for the world

It smiles at me
The blush in infinity
Exhorting resilience
Assuring the return of the warbler
Calling it a day

Assuring certainty
Beyond the uncertain
Another day
Beyond the night
A beginning
Beyond the finishing line

It calls out to me
To tell me that
Even though heavens may now fall
They rise tomorrow
For if I am the creator
I also destroy sorrow

And as my conversation with the crimson ends
With the blush fading away
I’m more at peace
Tranquil
A believer
Of the down of the sun
Over its rise


--Divya Rathi

Discovery

I went all out
Looked for salvage 
I came too far to escape reality and dodge expectation
But the demon is there
Following me around 
Replacing my shadow with itself 
I look for middle ground 

I run 
As far as I can 
I be 
As swift as I could
Until a dead end shows up in front of my eyes 

Blank. An infinity of quiet and gray
A quiet bereft of peace shouting out to the hollows of my soul 
I turn around 
The demon stands tall in all his might 

I cant take this. Except. I must.
No. No fear. No panic. No frenzy. No dismay. 
This is the part where you pull off your guards yet hold them strong
Face the thunder and fight the waves 

I shut my eyes and mother speaks 
Sailors are made of storms, she screams
And beyond the demon lay 
The way, the destination and white filtered off the gray 

And in that duel with the dark 
I lead myself to an encounter with
who I used to be and who I must become  
I finally know who I am, to where I head,
from where I come

From your perspective 
I was a gold digger 
What better a treasure 
Than finding myself 
In letting myself lose you. 

–Divya Rathi

Rationale

Rationale has ruled us longer, perhaps, than the era of colonisation.
For good, some would say,
While along with others I'd beg to differ, 
Differ for I have known logic to have slain surreal dreams for realistic ones,
And drifted apart in a sense, science from art. 

They would say I was poetic until I wasn't anymore,
And this, because one fine day I chose to believe life came with more thorns than roses.
The strength with which I bore the belief made it hard for me to look forth, 
I now stood on my own two feet bouldering the hallway of my imagination that once knew no bounds.

I chained myself to look at pigments rather than hues,
To feel the Mercury rather than warmth,
To study psychologies rather than endearing emotions.
With the concretes of my pragmatism I let the nature of my being be devastated. 

This we but allow to happen to each of us,
Be consumed by rejections and failures,
Forgoing the heritage of our visions at the behest of the concretes of our cognition. 
And hence the education that was meant to empower the existence ends up instead, shooting bullets right into the soul of our souls. 

Grow by leaps and bounds, I do not argue against that, 
But do not let the magnificence of achievement diminish the power of belief.
Believe still in the early morning dreams and believe in the ballads of ethereal romance, 
For the essence of what you are lies in what you can see beyond the proven and documented.

I decide now, to hold my pen up again, and firm
Break free of all barriers of judgement before they engulf me into a lifetime of captivity and lull. 
Stirring my volition away from the accustomed, I lead myself into seeing more than the visible, 
And with that, I'm a poet again.

-- Divya Rathi