Desolation, Vai B. Charm [bts book recommendations TXT] 📗

in my broken bangla I say,

'Ami tomake bhalo bashi.'

While you slowly skid away, socks on feet

sliding away from me.

 

Looking for your shoes, a human need. 

 

Between us

There's a table between us

I look at your face, so ordinary

but I keep looking

I wish to find the grief your words pour in my ears every night

 

yesterday we both cried inside

after the phone call twenty waves deposited hundred grains of sand on the beach

how do I know this?

the same way my mother knows your name

 

My mother is always cautious of my friends

acquaintances I make everyday

are her nightmares as she has seen me crying over broken bonds

she is curious to know how far have we gone

 

yesterday...

all this past has made me heavy

like rivers at the end of their journey

I am filled with old metaphors

till the brim of my throat

and words leak out of my eyes now and then

 

but in no words I can assure her

that thorns how so ever beautifully put

are discarded once they prick the keeper's fingers

that tongues are lethal objects outside kissing

that every nail on the fingers of your hand is an artefact

that my feet are full of nerves knotted from walking behind you

that you walk too fast for me to follow

 

red in my hand, is a danger symbol

I am sitting on my bed, and pray it to pull me in

I wish to dissolve in thin air

or to be sublimated like dry ice

 

my god has slept long ago

and my prayers aren't reaching him

his cell phone is off

and he is out of coverage area

today I wept while looking at a pile of candies

 

somebody saw their lover die in their arms

and ate grief with a metaphor of two synchronised clocks

 

your scent still lingers at the back of my mind

and I still remember all the colours you draped yourself in

I can't grieve, because they shouldn't know you ever

every sigh is a train to the unreachable station

 

/I still try to taste you in the back of my throat, but there are old pages stuffed there, with ink scattered around/ 

 

Photograph

Inside a photograph I go

 

to travel to lands faraway

 

to find frozen memories

 

and smiles hard

 

harder than I thought them to be

 

breaking like mud cakes

 

with cracks due to heat of the sun

 

time ruining polaroids

 

for one is the curse to another

 

my vision unclear

 

fog and smoke gathers on my glasses

 

I struggle to see

 

cold and harsh words float

 

in my dreams

 

I see you

 

laughing

 

with that voice of chasms

 

water running in a creek

 

smashing against rocks

 

moving pebbles on the shallow bed

 

my feet dipped in

 

cold water washes up to my ankles

 

where mother tied black threads

 

to save me from you

 

the love she sees as a problem

 

and warns me against you

 

one after another thoughts

 

come running, shrieking

 

like the old coal engine

 

which pulled the trains

 

when railroads pulled us apart

 

and we found warmth in beds with another

 

and in searching for your face

 

I touched the other faces with love

 

and time passed ruining polaroids

 

fading away the lines of your face

 

and I drown deep down in dreams

 

you come back to me

 

but now only as a shadow

 

and the love we had is now old

 

and I am lost in the woods

 

looking for the grave

 

I put our memories in

 

but didn't put up a headstone

 

lest somebody finds our treasure.

 

My own God

Our gods are broken in feet

 

they are standing on pedestals made of dead men

 

those who you worship are hollow inside

 

they will break apart as soon as the world catches fire

 

these dreams you see of saviours

 

the one who is chosen, who is great

 

all these dreams will turn to nightmares

 

and your knees will shiver and break

 

the very foundation shatters

 

and glass panes are broken with stones of truth

 

old might be my lamentation

 

but this world is unfair and unkind

 

I don't believe in Gods, not that I am an atheist

 

I had a god of mine too, but then his temple fell apart

 

I am losing him every day, every minute

 

he never knew I call him mine

 

he will never know

 

my earth trembles

 

this ground is sand

 

and my gods have renounced religion

 

my faith loses and love wins wars in dreams

 

long nights pass through me

 

leaving darkness behind which I then soak in. 

 

Thoughts

I think.

 

I think and a poem begins and ends right there,

 

but I would like to say a few more things.

 

Arranging letters to form words and words to form lines is a good way to escape.

 

Twenty six alphabets make up for the void in my head, they help me spell it properly.

 

Nobody remembers my hands while they touch me,

 

nobody remembers me after they touch my head.

 

Away to the fields I go, far away.

 

Ginger juice and salt is what my mother fed me on the nights I coughed.

 

(leave me oh thoughts so that people stay)

 

I cough hard and miss salt and ginger

 

In front of me is a book of poems,

 

I hate to see my soul etched in words.

 

I see my body as a poem hated by readers.

 

A poem starts and ends as I think.

 

Two hundred days of hunger, my mind goes to places unknown.

 

Twenty six alphabets fail to speak a language in which I can write,

 

a language which can truly tell my story.

 

Words which can show tricks and entertain people are useless.

 

My mind whirls, I go to fields far away.

 

Kaveh invokes Keats, and he answers back,

 

it's all in my head, to think too much is a problem I've created for myself

 

Somebody said this to me in twenty-six alphabets.

 

Next year I'll turn twenty two,

 

one more to go and then one more and then one more and so on...

 

I count my life in years one by one.

 

My favourite poet hates blades, she etched poetry on her wrists when she was ten.

 

Somebody said today they helped me on a day.

 

I didn't recognise his face.

 

His face was concrete, hard to read.

 

It didn't have any of the usual alphabets.

 

He was lying, I helped myself on that day.

 

My face smiles and I forget to laugh on her jokes.

 

My head whirls, I hate poetry which I can't read because letters float.

 

Twenty-six alphabets away lives my freedom,

 

and I'm stuck on the twenty-second.

 

.

The End.

Imprint

Text: Vaibhav Sharma
Images: Vaibhav Sharma
Cover: Vaibhav Sharma
Publication Date: 02-06-2021

All Rights Reserved

Dedication:
To all the desolate souls