a structure, well-worn & outdated,
knows only of its cracks, broken
tiles and pigeon shit, now a feature
of its scaffolding, defining its undying
form (always under repairs) beneath
a piquant-sunlight —
there is something about the grooves
&shapes rising on/from ancient stone
that matches with the listless lines/signs
on my palm, as if comp(l)eting some
of its shadow, an unfinished myth
bypassing&becoming a history that
i could only carry&know in dreams.
in this hemisphere of time
where years are lost in discoveries
of beauty,
and days spent in the reverie
of those youthful dreams —
i map out the latitudes&longitudes (of longing)
on my body, to find the passage of my thirst,
lining experiences&exigencies on the shore
of all that was, and all that could have been,
now lost.
where do i begin, if i do not know
where i need to go?
a grey sky is like a page resting in
a solution of redundancy and restraint,
i have filed my complaints, nailed them
on the doors of my assailants, their bite
marks still fresh on my wood-picked skin,
their claws bright-white where they once
etched a mark of this impunity
that they call desire.
no one ever told me that i wielded an agency
over the brownness of my skin, or utility
of my innards, or roundness of my ass,
or the thought of my throat,
well riddled in the ecstasy of wants,
so i began to write my loss of agency without
knowing what it ever meant, so i reclused myself
to a departed space of pain when i never
knew that it is but to be salvaged.
my tiredness is my reprieve, in my restless
lies and stigmatized submission,
of a hundred torn-pieces of this tapestry.
the white falls slowly. the red fills
the myth of my own charity.
erased — i write when there is nothing
to be known, reversed to the birth
of a sky, with a broken scaffolding.
picture me when i have yielded to
this vile wantonness of freedom,
and the stubbornness of my disease.
For my upcoming prompt at dVerse Poetics (The Art of Confession in Poetry) later this evening, wherein I am invoking the likes of Lowell, Plath, Sexton, and Das to understand the nature of confessional poetry. Also linking it up with the Tuesday Platform at WTR. Image source (Charles Francois Mouthon, Academic Study, 1892)
the last night’s bemoaning touch still speaks
in its streamlined, suggestive tunes, to gather
support for its resonance, while whistling
its siren melody in the dirty swathes of light.
its own nature has taken a toll on its slighted
health with the calming chill of a crestfallen
rain. dreams beside the bulwarks of fantasies
gather all that is left of a tattered peace flag.
the grief is not that the steps were numbered,
but that they weren’t counted, to begin with.
it grows inward – in-in – perhaps to reach its
middle, its beginning, where all becomes one.
the trunk of the old banyan has adhered to
the loss like none other, unlike my eyes that
widen, still, at the prospect of a sting from
the mouth, that speaks of those lived glories.
but how do i strive to remember how to fly,
when i did not know how, to begin with?
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.
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