BENEATH
Arunima Mehrotra as Jindotekina
Copyright2016 Arunima Mehrotra
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Centre of The Universe
When you look at the leaves falling
Or the Silhouette of beams and railings
Or the drooping Stars,
Does the inevitably of it all not scare you?
How your bones will crumble away like Pastries and the Blood in your Veins just bloom to rot again.
How the galaxies you long held, fall apart like old magnets and the dreams coiled underneath your collarbones spring out only to be faded away.
Does the fear not grip you?
Does something not pound against you chest as you look at your toes and nails and tremble at the revelation?
How your own truth; You being the Centre of the Universe, seems like a whisper among the howling stars.
Coward
Who are you?
Really.
You don’t look like a Protagonist, but talk like one.
You don’t laugh when the crowd laughs; Your pupils darken at the sight of the sky; You yearn for touch, but reject it nervously;
Such a Coward
Why do you look at me like that – like you are about to break?
Why do you Cry yourself to Sleep?
Why do your hands seem so Humane – while you tread apart from it (oh; so tenderly ) ?
You look like you are on the verge of disappearance, but its an intriguing sight.
Sometimes, it seems like you have wings.
But you Shred them yourself when you smile.
There is Tremendous Beauty in your grief.
You can never be free from yourself, can you? You try to mellow yourself down, soften your eyes, think less. But the darkness always win – and somehow you love yourself for it.
You can never be free from yourself. And so you wonder if you can ever be happy.
But then- why?
Why do you smile at the most unprecedented of all times ?
Why do you applaud for all the right things ?
And even past all the cowardice, when you brush your hands on your pants, and rise from the flecks – I swear I see Strength.
Then why do you even pretend? Why do you put a view of mediocre over your crown ?
Why do you keep Heroism hidden, and clamor past the Mud- Holes.
You are a Coward because you fear you will never fit in.
I am repulsed by your attempts, and awed by your naivety.
Some things are meant to be ,
let them .
something about The way.
There is something about the way
A person needs to be seen
With awe and with tenderness, bare and godlike.
There is something about the way
A person needs to be touched
With soft, trembling fingers touching the sun-soaked skin.
There is something about the way
A person needs to be interpreted
With the raw, gnawing truth, scratching at the inside of your heart.
There is something about the way
A person needs to be understood
With little white lies and straightforward eyes, and strong palms.
There is something about the way
A person needs to be heard
With arms open and eyes closed, and the scripted answers on the tongue tip.
There is something about the way
A person needs to be loved
With pure silver and tinges of copper, hatred, and submission and dominance and running away and pulling closer.
With wondering hands and quiet solitude of his embrace.
Bury Her Love
She is a builder.
.
A tiny little house on the Moon,
The tendrils from her hair,
dripping stardust on the curtains,
Her fingers trail behind the doors,
leaving galaxies crumbling
under her
touch.
The darkness of the Sun,
will bury skeletons
deep inside her
cupboards,
and save sea shells
in her drawers.
She is bleeding
comets from her pores,
each
half awakened dreams.
She is building a house on
the moon,
she is a
Sailor Among the Stars,
her boat
tumbling down the nebulas,
back into time
and space.
She is leaving.
She wears the stars
on her body,
like a queen.
Is this what empowerment feels like?
Is this enough?
Too bury her love, in the Moondust?
Nomads
All of us are nomads.
We don’t fit. We don’t belong. (somewhere, anywhere)
We got an old soul, a soul of a wanderer, a person in search.
Hold us down, and we soar higher.
Hold us down, and we explode.
Please, don’t hold us down.
We keep running.
Wildly, definitely, we search all nooks of the world.
Tired, restless, with empty eyes, we still,
Run.
We have the soul of a traveller,
with the heart of a poet and the hands of an artist.
even if the world spins in reverse,
even if the Sun threaten to burn us black,
we keep running.
running.
Remember?
remember the days when we spilt the sun in two and smeared the sunlight on our cheeks as war paint?
remember the day when you freed all the butterflies coiled beneath my collarbones, and watched them as they flew away?
remember the day you pulled me underneath the ocean and draped little fishes and pearls over my lying body?
remember the day when we flew in for the moon and landed among the stars, and you combed out the stardust from my knotted hair?
remember the days when the shadows from the leaves left trails of words over your face and I decoded each and every letter?
remember?
(I don’t.)
Questions
lets dance in style,
lets dance for a while;
heaven can wait,
we are only watching the sky.
all of us are waiting.
Waiting. Tick Tock. Tick Tock.
Waiting for the world to know us, for the universe to recognise us, how brilliant we are. All of us, shining, shining brighter than any stars known to us. And so we wait, swallowing our own pain into patience, the silent noise of time deafening us.
this waiting, its killing me.
I. I don’t want to wait. I want to let the universe engulf me.
I want the stars to align, to make a place for me.
I want the galaxies to spin the other way, the whole essence of immortality spread thin over my skin.
I want to wear life as a perfume, so that even the ground I tread upon shimmers beneath me.
is that what we all want?
to live a breathtaking life.
What I do want , Oh what I so terribly want that my heart is breaking, is a word yet to be spoken. It is at the tip of my tinge. But it just won’t escape.
Do you Hear that.
do you hear that? that is the sound of
my universe expanding,
the stars realigning,
the nebulas breaking,
for more spirits to
tremble in.
do you hear that?
that is the sound of
the sun falling,
and the ashes rising,
and gears rewinding,
as I walk towards You.
do you hear that?
that is the sound of
your hand touching mine,
my skin, bursting,
under your sweaty
touch.
do you hear that?
that is the sound of
my eyes growing wetter,
the world getting luminescent,
longer.
do you hear that?
do you hear the key working
its way into me,
the sound of
me unlocking.
and its tremendously terrifying.
The Night
in the golden blaze
of the night sky
which seemed to shine
on those tears.
drunken from the
stars in the dark,
when the night came
and she seemed to
be remotely alone
in the silence of
the sheets and the
comfort of teardrops.
fingers trembling,
lips mumbling
and eyes drowsing
on the verge of
agony.
the gold seemed too
bright on her skin
and the moons smeared
on her dress
she curled up on the bed
a trusted bear by her side
guarding her from the
demons under the bed
and the ones inside her head.
she wished,
oh so terribly she wished
that all gravity will die
the ones between her and the earth
and the ones between
the tears and her cheeks
and she would fall into
the gold moon and the stars.
and never come back again.
this drunkenness;
this fear;
this world.
A Queen
She was a queen for the way
She walked in the trenches,
Blood and gunpowder spilling everywhere
In the battlefield.
She was a queen for her head
Never shook with pain from the
Shoots she took, her hand just
Trembled with rage.
She was a queen for bearing the red cross
In the battlefield,
Tumbling and stumbling on the
Corpses of her once breathing love.
She was a queen for she never looked back.
For her compassion, her driving passion,
Her ambition, her strength, Herself.
She was a queen in the battleground.
And she never looked back.
Crow
She had a Dragon tattoo
Scraped behind her
Back.
Her hair cut short
In chops,
Thin veils
Rolled around her neck.
So that everyone
Can see
The broken shards of
Light
She used to scatter
Everywhere.
Her crow like wings spread
Apart, ominous black feathers
Spring viciously from her
Shoulder blades,
Which she sets on fire.
She loved herself and
Despised herself terribly.
Twisted she was they used
To say…
But honestly, she was just free willed.
What Happens Next
These timid rebukes of yours;
I brush them aside foolishly,
With a slight of hand-
And your face crumples
And crumbles;
And I smile.
Dizziness
Dizziness
As i inhaled
The room got bigger
And i got smaller
And diminished
Pressed Flowers
she was like a
pressed flower;
so beautiful and
fragile
with her petals
curling at the
ends
shades of grey
and pink and brown.
she never seemed
to age
never seemed
to get dirty
never seemed
to cry
never seemed
to smile.
that flower never
tasted the sunlight
on her light
petals.
the rays never
seemed to
reach her.
as she was
trapped in
this tender
page she thought
to be her home.
and with
her blank eyes
she looked blankly
at the meadow
with a small
bundle of
flowers seemed
to sway in the
scented breeze.
her heart,
that had ceased
beating a while ago
would squeeze.
a horribly
painful feeling
at the back of
her throat.
and when ever
she reached out
to those evil
bright colors
a devilled hand
would pull her
back…
in a world of
more creatures
like her,
all pressed
under the weight
of pages and those
hands.
they would
urge her to
sleep,
and she slept.
today
tomorrow
and the days after that.
and her mind
would have felt
nostalgic for
the scented breeze
on her face,
somewhere deep
down her heart.