Written by Ayush Banerjee
I sit near the quiet lake
where my words, no longer afraid
of a quicksand pit inside my brain,
bathe in the waters;
wherein lay a feeble boat
and a weary sailor’s body,
that has withheld the secrets
of letters, sealed inside old wine bottles,
from the tornados of time.
The water that’d been cursed
held onto his lover’s reflection tight,
for all he could do was admire her
from far above in the sky.
The ideas,
they try to blend in
with the clear skies of autumn.
I feel the heaviness of the darker clouds
slowly engulfing the skies,
shadowing my free-spirited dream.
Nostrils that have always cherished
the alluring petrichor
now rests with the soothing odour
of the alluvium deposited near the shore.
Thoughts appear to me,
swollen and detached like patches of clouds,
seeking empty skies
where lies beauty in the dull.
The skies that always dreamt
in shades of vermillion and blue,
wrapped with laces of ochre,
remain as lonely as the barren tree.
The skin appears to me as a road-
It seeks comfort from flowers of fall,
draping a garland of fortitude
around those weary paths
that have only heard shrill horns.
It bears the atrocious weight of scars
resembling tire tracks and footprints;
the crumbling road, like my skin,
that has grown through pain
only longs to sense the touch
that will leave no more craters of vulnerability,
for it has run out of empty spaces
to shed its tears, lost in servitude.
Eyes,
dominated by the mind’s perception
and what it thinks;
they’ve seen blood
rolling down the cheek
and there,
for the first time,
they wished to be able to cry,
they’ve tasted the pain
from the blues and the black
and they’ve learnt an obscure knowledge
about an abiding separation
by a wall covered with flesh,
that keeps them at bay.
The eyes,
they can no longer hold their pain
they want to live
in the comfort of each other.
I sit near the quiet lake
that has heard whispers of
the tongue that have gone sour
with the taste of nicotine.
Beheaded the essence of life
through the painless execution
by the starving guillotine,
that has seen my body
plead for its own freedom
for it can take no more.
The walls of which are crumbling down,
unlike the mind that has gone numb;
I wish I could release you
and let you breathe
for you detest clinging onto my soul,
for you long to live on your own,
as I am too shallow for your growth.
