all our riches

i spend the exact change (i have left) of simple words,
gentle words, neurotic words, hunchbacked words,

to have the evening speak and last for some more time —
every second of the same quality and ruse as the lingering

fragrance of raat ki rani, dreaming dreadful thoughts
and foregoing them in a simple parable – “it is only a phase” –
i laugh at my own conjecture that it will perchance still
get better — normalcy lies ahead in a neo-noir paradise,
waiting around the corner.

“life is like a dubious pile of ash” — but Gulzar has already said
that the ashtray is full — no more space (maybe money) left
to fulfill the urge for another puff.

perhaps it is not, perhaps it is another currency,
unfamiliar in shape/size, when the exchange rate
is not known and sapphires already spent —
the parched mouths do not ask for another name
of the word — the spendthrift work over moments

to make sense of a cloud-befuddled mood, depicting natures
of the orange moon (lost in the haze of untarnished selves).

“there is a worm within us that turns everything into a threadbare
experience, a frayed impression of our yearnings,” you said.

it is good that i have another penny left in the pocket within the
pocket, where words do not reach, budgets do not measure
our wealth.

you can have it.

.

*raat ki rani (lit. the queen of the night; Night Blooming Jasmine; scientific name: cestrum nocturnum) — the fragrance abounds anywhere and everywhere these evenings
**Gulzar’s poem, Ashtray puri bhar gyi hai; trans. The Ashtray is Overflowing

© Anmol Arora 2018

For Midweek Motif at PU
Also linking it up with dVerse OLN
Image source (A Trompe Loeil Of Paper Money Coins by French School)

 

 

 

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line-break

a line breaks from a poem,
worded in the waning wonder of
a vanquished want,

runs through my palm,
resting against the hollow of
my ache — controlled —

measuring ounces of comfort,
harbouring

my nights in an oblivion-obvious pause…

…picking up the pace,
keeping on.

.
© Anmol Arora 2018

For dVerse Quadrille
Image source (The Pause of Unknowingness by Dan Crossley)

***

For contact, you can reach out to me through my multiple profiles, enlisted here.

disbelief

a sense of disbelief —

people pleasing people,
shadows falling a-p-a-r-t
in their own figurative voids

make for an entirely new
picture, atypical of agonies,
realized but not really felt.

whiteness doesn’t scare me,
lights measure my body mass
and frequency of my beats.

the ground shakes, angles
come down, and i learn to
belie that very disbelief and

know, inhaling is vital for this
and every other moment
to pass.

.

© Anmol Arora 2018

Image source (Deep Inhalation Of The Cosmic Breath Painting by Ganesh Bhat)
Linking it up with the Tuesday Platform at With Real Toads

***

I have been working on a new Insta handle for over a month now, for literary and creative posts: @anmol.ha.
For contact, you can reach out to me through my multiple profiles, enlisted here.

Life, right now

Okay, it’s been a long time coming. It’s strange how this place used to be a repository of all my horrid experiences in life and how it provided me refuge from the insurmountable grief of being alive and wading through the darkness of my mind, and how I stopped doing that entirely, focusing instead on something that came out to mean a lot to me. For a change, I am reverting to the original intent behind everything, perhaps behind every word I have ever written.

I know and I acknowledge that living is not easy. My college education made me aware of the social condition of so many people and communities all over the world. My experiences pale in comparison to those who struggle to even survive — death, illness, starvation, violence, war, et al. govern their lives and their actions every minute. I am so privileged to have a roof over my head, regular meals and clean drinking water to keep my body alive, healthcare provisions when I am sick and financial support for basic amenities and some leisure. How I live may deem to be luxurious by many and I am often ashamed of that. I try to be politically and socially conscious, raise my voice in whatever way I can against destitution and exploitation, and care about people around me. This is of course not enough.

I am not enough, even when I have all these privileges and luxuries. I am constantly fighting my own self, my own condition, my own mind, my life which seems to be adamant at breaking me down. Perhaps I am complicit in this internal violence. And it hurts at times. Otherwise, I have in a way blocked myself from feeling, from dealing with my own emotions or expressing them in a way which is direct and confrontational. So, I am doing this to try to undo my own resistance to the acceptance of my condition. Intrusive thoughts are a part and parcel of my everyday existence — panic attacks, suicidal thoughts and social anxiety are so inundated in me that I no longer heed my own pain.

Yes, I had to deal with some situations and circumstances which have left a deep impact on me, made me snivel and cry in the corner of my bedroom, holding my own self to get through the hour and the day. ‘One day at a time’: I had come to believe that as a dictum to help me through every day. What a limited condition to keep alive!

I finally had some control because I was busy for three years with my education. There were times when I would find myself in a dark chasm, but I could find my way out, find a light at the periphery of my vision and get on with it. Since completing that, it’s been three months and it seems I am back to where I was. Life has come a complete circle and I am still reeling from the things I had come to ignore and bury within my psyche.

I am not doing good. I don’t know what lies ahead, but I find myself not caring about it. Incidentally, a friend brought it to my attention after a pitiful thing happened to me today. She said that I am displaced from some solace the routine had provided me and that I am giving up now and that is making it worse. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I may be giving up on everything, and not just my career or romance or other sensory experiences.

And yet, I am not able to do anything about it. I don’t know how to take care of myself anymore. At least I am waking up every day, trying to read and write, having one or two meals, drinking plenty of water…

I am putting it all out there just for the small comfort that I am sharing it. How I always have this need to be understood! This is the only thing that keeps me going, for now, to be able to express and reflect upon my own breaking.

That is all.

small comforts

.

small comforts are the packages of distrust
in my bulging shirt-pocket, hanging by
its last threads —

i am a tea kettle, stationary as a decor,
another plaything of the gentry — ideas
pushed into my gut like a day-old
pastry — stringent, decadent, slightly off,

i am a damp kitchen towel of moderate
temperatures — calescent on the fore-
head, dizzy with the worry of a fresh
lack of sickness — rich, sweet, a little off,

i am a window curtain kneeling on
the tartan floor — the warm breeze sets in
and moves around in its obvious rhythm of
convalescence — swift, heavy, switched off,

— i take small comforts through the nights,
carry them along the crooked lines, one
inclined thread hanging by the other.

.

Image source: Ragina Bogat, This Way That, 1990

For MLM Menagerie’s Wordle. Also linking it up with the Tuesday Platform at With Real Toads.