Presence

I leave my body to stare at it in class, from afar
The hardest place to be is right where you are.
The hands on my wrist go from obtuse to right,
The sandclocks in this room grow light.
Just ten more minutes, then home.
In my bed, I’m sitting facing my friend via my phone.
Can never wait for the day to be over, can never pass the night, waiting for dawn
Hours stretch to decades, weeks fly by, the fabric of time is torn
Home is everywhere but here, I’m in a haze
I won’t be, maybe when the time is right, when the moon is in the right phase
The hardest place to be is right where you are.

Harmless Musings

I don’t understand what I’m saying
I don’t know what is going on
Except that it is going
On and on and on
Into a black hole.

Am i dreaming? Is this reality?
I want this piece to rhyme
But there is no time
There is no time Nonu
The walls are running away.

My heartbeat is weird
What is it that the voice in my head saying?
My emotions are shut inside Pandora’s box
They are Schrödinger’s cat
I am wanted both dead and alive.

What I’m feeling at this second
And the levels of my sanity after I decipher it
Are the two factors of
Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle
Knowledge of both is unattainable, to even God.

Hold on, my bed caught fire
The ceiling fan is talking to me
The books are melting down
I am convinced this is a nightmare

But should I wake up and end my misery
Or should I stay and collect data?
Organise it when I’m sane
Metaphorise it when my legs are not donkeys

The burnt bedspread is now snow
And I’m tempted to make angels
The room flips at a 180° angle
My hair goes upside down
I do a headstand on the roof
My blouse is a supernova.

I want to wake up now
And i really do try to
I close my eyes
And i try to die.
Because that is the first thing that comes to my mind.

I open my eyes and I’m Awake.
Atleast gravity seems to be working
But broken glass still encirles me like a halo
And the room is on fire.

The room is on fire.
I scream.
The room is on fire.
Is this actual fire or am I hallucinating?
The room is on fire.
When did I last eat?
The room is on fire.
Is the world okay?
The room is on fire.
Where is mom?
The room is on fire.
I don’t want to die.
The room is on fire.
My feet are still cold?
The room is on fire.
I am on fire.
And, poof.

---

Yes, girls, gals, and nonbinary pals (sorrry no boys allowed), ’tis I, here to provide some much needed context.

So, i came back from Yoga class today, and instead of being all zen, calm, relaxed, focused etc. from the meditation, my mind decided to replicate a hindi news channel screen during elections. I mean, the graphics were too much. Everything was too much, like a sensory overload. From the outside i probably looked like i was blankly looking at my notes, sat in my chair on my desk; but on the inside it felt like i was standing in the middle of a storm and it is raining and my bag is open and my papers are flying out. It is really hard to explain what was felt by me because even i don’t understand, but i think the word intense encapsulates it.

So to let off some steam i started writing literally the first words that came to my head ( a bad idea already) and then i got into this super scary zone where i just kept witing and cutting of words until it felt right. Then i went to class and forgot all about this maniac writing extravaganza.

See, if i were the type of person who curses in their blog, I’d say that I have no fucking clue where I was going with this. Is this a metaphor? Why is room upside down? Why am I so urgent? Why did I mention the name of my teddy (nonu) I sleep with? What is that ending? Did i wake up? I like the line about my blouse being a supernova but what, does, it, mean? Your guess is as good as mine.

I’ve written stuff i don’t understand, I’ve done this before, but nothing ever has been so bewildering. So I decided to post this to ask you, my readers, (I address my audience way too much, keeping in mind the fact that only 7 people actually read my stuff) to tell me how you interpret this. What do you think morning Tanu was trying to say when the room caught fire.

Any dubious or serious help would be appreciated.

(This is so sad Alexa play Main Aisa Kyun Hun) Shut up Me-in-parentheses.

There Is A Party In My Notebook And Everyone Is High On The New Notebook Smell.

New notebooks are terryfying
They look at you, poker faced
I flip through the blank pages
And suddenly my fingers forget how to spell

New notebooks are mean
“What are you going to do?
What will you do to change the world?
Are your first words seriously going to be “new notebooks”? “

New notebooks are hopeful
Maybe I will complete all my notes
Maybe I will practice maths daily
Maybe I will change the world

New notebooks a nostalgic
When I was 11, covering them in brown paper
Putting on a Winnie the Pooh name sticker
Waiting for the index to be filled with A+s

Years passed and the A+s turned into A’s
Then an occasional C would pop up
Sometimes there be a red ?
Last year, however, all this stopped.

Opening a new notebook now
Is a tad bit different
Because there is no one to disappoint
There is no one to scold but me.

New notebooks are a little paralyzing.
Everything has to be perfect
Until that one day when it’s not perfect
And then who gives a shit really?

Once I bought a notebook
“To organise my poetry”
But then i stared at it for 15 days
With no new poetry.

Because my words are not used to it
-it being that new notebook smell
That respect, that neatness
My words are introverts and this notebook is an obnoxious party.

My haikus are used to the back of the Physics register
My sonnets are happy on a napkin
They feel bewildered at this luxery
My words would rather die than stain it.

But my words, like me, are melodramatic.
And this notebook is not that expensive
I’m not an introvert personally
But I know an awful lot of them.

Hence I know that sometimes
When your words are refusing to leave your brain,
You need to gently approach them, caress their faces maybe,
And write their asses to the damn party.

Weather Report

“What’s the weather like outside your window? And if that’s not inspiring, what’s the weather like somewhere you wish you could be?”

I walk up to the lonely window in my room
At noon, I part the drapes.
Work on the latch, I push back the glass pane
A frosty breeze comes in, a shiver escapes

It’s noon and Apollo should be at his peak
But the clouds have held him hostage
No matter how many scarves I offer as ransom
They seem really keen on recreating the ice age

The sky is white, so is the air
The fog is a tall glass of milk
The crumbs of rusk, floating – the few brave
On the dtreet, sealed in wool and silk.

I close everything again
I wish I was back in the beach.
Heels dipped in the holy Indian Ocean
Back in Andaman, where the sky was peach

Where there could be nothing wrong in the world, ever.