Falling in love

If I had one more heart

I would readily give it to you

And to you, you and

perhaps to you too!

But you see, the one I had, is already taken

Yet everyday, I keep falling in love

unplanned and spontaneously

my senses so easily enraptured

I fall in love with your sunrise

I fall in love with my dusk

I fall in love with traditional cooking

When the heady aromas envelop

I romance aromatic baking

For it brings a smile on my kids’ faces

Makes my home smell heavenly

And store bought cookies replaces

I fall in love with the angelic tangle of arms and legs

now asleep without a care

Whose sibling rivalry and revelry fill my home and heart

As well as my life and soul

I fall in love with your words, your turn of phrase

What you say and what you leave unsaid

I fall in love with the verses that reach out to me,

The stories that only your mind can create

Your unique experience that you kindly share

I fall in love with the pictures of blooms and pets you send

I fall in love with the magic of movies

And their world of wondrous make- believe

I fall in love with many a books

Their life like characters and their authors

And the belief and conviction that they portray

I fall in love with the music I listen to,

The singer, the writer and the musician

I fall in love with the raindrops falling

The overcast skies and the crescent moon

I fall in love hopelessly and completely everyday

And as my whimsical heart waxes and wanes in love

The one who captured my heart many moons ago

Sits in a corner looking indulgently

At the shenanigans of my wayward heart

He draws me close and holds my hand and says

” Your heart is not my captive, let it love and love freely

As long as I have a place in your heart

Accommodate as many loves as you can”

Thus, in freeing my heart, he captures it again.

Pain

My eyes are arid these days
tears don’t stream down
as was their wont
the searing pain
scorched them
leaving behind
parchment dryness
my paper cut eyes
bloodshot and dead
stare unseeingly
the residual salt
on my lips tastes of
the wreckage called life.

So, I dip a tentative toe in the dVerse stream.

Written for dVerse quadrille prompt: stream.

Not so supermanly but humanly

Soaring temperatures, sweltering heat
Two lonely old superheroes out on the street
No sign of rain and the infernal capes
Looking for something cooling, whatever it takes!
They spy an ice candy man and shout with guttural glee
Startling the poor man and making him flee
Slurping on the ice cream with obvious relish
Doing foolish things can be so delish!

https://lifeafter50forwomen.com/2021/07/26/what-do-you-see-92/

https://amanpan.com/2021/07/22/eugis-weekly-prompt-soaring-july-22-2021/

Manufactured truth

A few thousand dead bodies
some floating face up, some face down
they were just some putrid flotsam
why did they make everyone darkly frown?

People running helter and skelter
desperate for a few lungsful of oxygen
they were already gasping for fresh air
pollution killed them, don’t be so high-strung!

Hundreds of corpses piling in the crematorium
night air filled with deep sobs and choking miasma
natural causes kill people too
this country is surely not a burning hell!

Phones and emails hacked at will
anyone who questions the state is its enemy
why raise such a stink over such allegations
the state is the big brother, ’tis not blasphemy!

Lies, fabrication and exaggeration
are peddled in the west in the name of news
there were no deaths, no paucity of facilities
the government puts forth its official views

Trash all the reports and all the data
suspend disbelief, disengage your brain
believe WhatsApp messages and all the hoardings
your mind should be like the stagnant water of drain.

https://reinventionsreena.wordpress.com/2021/07/22/__trashed/

Vitriol

The whirlwind of his words
though expected, always knocks me down
leaving my knees weak and wobbly
scattering my composure like a bundle of straw
the slurry of alcohol and contumelious derision
pours forth contemptuously
from his frothy, sneering mouth
the tar black viscosity of toxicity
crushes me with the ferocity of a ton of bricks
then dribbles down deep into my denuded heart
corroded and misshapen beyond recognition
creating a stygian worthlessness
tongue tied and petrified, I stand rooted
facing the obnoxious aural onslaught
spleen spent, he staggers away
my timorous soul wrings it hands
bemoaning the lack of courage at disposal
but promising resolution in future
which, in truth, eludes with regularity every time.

https://lifeafter50forwomen.com/2021/07/19/what-do-you-see-91/

My fears

My fears lie to me everyday
their perfidious ploys
making me pusillanimous
from the hunter, I become the prey

I forget from naught we came
and to naught we go
in the circle of life
seasons bloom and fade

despair and hope move cyclically
with no concern for orderliness
I hear life calling out
I choose to disregard my fears.

History

“This is insanity”, I shout at her rigid, receding back
her eighteen year old spine
has as much steel as did mine at her age
I curse under my breath
memories of distant past flood my troubled mind

It still lies in the dusty corner cabinet
beneath the silken, floral duvets
hidden and buried deep
but unforgotten
a piece of my past that I cannot erase

ever the rebel, in a fit of anger
to spite my mom
I had coloured my hair fuchsia pink
that one act of madness, of defiant delirium
a show of my cussedness
drove a wedge wide and gaping between us forever

The frostiness of our relationship
has not thawed with time
“Harlot” she had called me then
splintering an already tottering bond
forgiving and forgetting had gone past repair

I don’t want history to repeat itself
nor be the mother my mother was
with resigned footsteps and a forced smile
ruing my own foolhardiness
I make my way to her room.

https://lifeafter50forwomen.com/2021/07/12/what-do-you-see-90-july-12-2021/

https://amanpan.com/2021/07/15/eugis-weekly-prompt-unforgotten-july-15-2021/

https://reinventionsreena.wordpress.com/2021/07/15/reenas-xploration-challenge-190/

Melancholy and hope

Under the cover of rain
melancholy walked in quietly, without even knocking
sharing my room these days

though she came empty handed
she carries a lot of extraneous baggage
my feeble protests do not deter her
from strewing pain and guilt around
my eyes she refuses to meet
yet sits on their sleep hungry swollen rims

she forages each nook and cranny
surreptitiously nibbling at the stale remnants of joy for sustenance
she tucks me under the blanket of wretchedness every night
singing a dolorous threnody that keeps me awake
lacing her finger through mine
she sits with a hangdog expression.

Hope that lay in an apathetic torpor
within my withered and withdrawn soul
slowly shed sluggishness to become sapient
unable to watch melancholy getting ensconced

she leaves a fragile paper bag through the ajar window
that faintly twinkles with tiny sequins of happiness
my hands, tired of the burden of pessimism
clutch at the sliver of sanguinity

struggling for coherence
I start to stitch haphazard patterns
melancholy now often skulks in a corner
lethargic and inefficacious in the face of hope.

I smile

A ghost of it tugs at the corner of my lips
like you used to tug my pallu*
fading quickly like a shadow
stress creases and anxiety lines push it away

shimmering, quavering eyes watch you navigate
the highs as well as the lows
sometimes with graceful equanimity
with rising frustration at others

fear is a bitter pill I swallow every night
the balm of acceptance gives no relief
sleep eludes red-rimmed, restless eyes
reality scarier than any nightmare

and yet, when I feel your young heart
beat steadily under my palm
as a sweet smile curves your lips when you sleep
the tugging eventually turns into a tremulous smile!

*Pallu/ˈpʌluː/nounnoun: pallu; plural noun: pallus – the loose end of a sari, worn over one shoulder 

Just today

Today I don’t want to live in today
Today my mind travels the maze of past
Synaptic network brings alive yesterday
Some reminisces however forever last!

Today my mind travels the maze of past
Thinking of the trusted jalopy that would take us near and afar
Some reminisces however forever last
How can I ever forget that beloved yesterday’s car!

That truly trusted jalopy that would take us near and afar
Crisscrossing across the undulating, languid country
I can never forget dad’s all yesterdays cars
Adventures, breakdowns; memories special as well as sundry!

Crisscrossing across the undulating, languid country
Rekindling old obscure and forgotten relationships
Adventures, breakdowns; memories special as well as sundry
Life did bloom abundantly despite the hardships.

Rekindling old, obscure forgotten relationships
Today is the day, I don’t want to live in today
Life did bloom abundantly despite the hardships
Synaptic network brings alive precious fragments of yesterday.

https://lifeafter50forwomen.com/2021/07/05/what-do-you-see-89-july-5-2021/

https://amanpan.com/2021/07/08/eugis-weekly-prompt-network-july-8-2021/

No solace

Thorny thoughts snag my thrumming mind

their projections piercing precarious, palsy-ridden peace

interrupting the sluggish chugging of life at will

muddying the already muddied lees.

Their insidious invasion with incessant cries

peoples my brain with fears known and unknown

the eerie silence that shrouds my surroundings

shatters into shards on which I lay my emotions.

I try to unfurl the mixed metaphors of life

instead my truths lie unlaced and unraveled

their ugly nakedness pushing me into the arms of wanton darkness

but, I realise, the dark environs have hidden agendas.

I fear every new morning that reveals unfamiliar demons

an uneven fight ensues every day

beaten and broken I sit hugging my knees

“This too shall pass” provides no solace.