The Poetry Marathon

Deep in the night I heard it ring

The doorbell, soft and quiet.

A few nights later I heard it again

Insistent, strident.

The next time I went to the door

Peeped through the eyehole

At a dark empty landing.

Yet again when I heard the bell

I went and opened the door.

Looked around sleepily,

Stood in the darkness and asked aloud

Who are you,

And what is it you want?

There was no answer.

Last night there was a knock.

On my bedroom door.

Two worlds in juxtaposition

Living separate lives but bound by a thread

Invisible, fragile, sharpened by years

To cut through life’s griefs

To bind and enable.

Will it last, will it last?

Will it endure the test of time?

Or shall it shatter

In a rainbow of emotions

Some exquisite, some fatal.

I am not here, I do not sit noiselessly

And contemplate life

Surrounded by rounded walls

I do not live in this modern house

Or in a cabin in the woods.

I am not in the homeless shelter

I am not the vagabond under the bridge.

I live in my head

That six inches of real estate

Between my ears, in the fat and protein

Inside my head.

Inside my reality

where I tell myself who I am

and what I can

or cannot be.

Naïve, raw, my grief an uncut diamond

Waiting to be set in a pendant and hung

Around my neck. I had assigned two fathers

To the flames, I thought that I was strong.

Still learning ten years later, still trying

To let go. I was innocent in many ways

Unaware of the trajectories of this old heart

For as long as it beats, the fears the anger

Remains. As does hope, the plain gold bangle

Encircling my wrist. Manacled to my fate.

We indulge our passions, unthinking

Of how it feels to others, I am most alive

When I am dead underwater, cocooned

In its gentle caress. No hacking cough

Not even the pain that shoots

Down my leg on land. This poem flows

Like the drops that slide of my back

As I take a turn and swim away.

Maybe my father was right, I was born

On a November morning when the moon

Looked at me in hiding and told me to float.

Float away, stay afloat. And that is where

You will find me, my past draped around me

Naked and weightless staying afloat.

Here’s wishing all the participants (full or half) the very best! May your creative juices keep you going. This is my third attempt, the first one had me raring for more. Last year too I was very excited but for several reasons could not complete the full marathon. So I will not say much ,having learnt the hard way that sometimes our best intentions go for a toss, but see you all soon, in a couple of hours!!!!

This is my second year of participating and I can’t wait!!! So excited to be here, see you all soon! And yes, I know there’ll be some great poetry to read too!

The house is in need of paint, father,

plaster peels off the walls.

The verandah stares vacant and blank,

no life within its halls.

It’s just a house, I said to myself

as I passed down that road,

just a house, abandoned and dark

that once housed our souls.

How can it then be, just a house?

I thought again as I gazed at it.

This is the house where you died

and the home where we lived.

So do not laugh if you find me there

gazing back in time and space

there are houses and then there are houses

not all of them broker peace.

Taunt me not if I see my childhood

etched on every parapet and sill

I may grow in years but am none the wiser 

and this little girl needs you still. 

There are poems in the forest

Waiting to be found

Among the trees and leaves

Fireflies alight to the ground.

There are forests in the poems

Unexplored, unfound

There are poems in the forest

Waiting to be found.

Branches that those blithe spirits cross

Overhangs laden with moss

Flutters of light spring a chorus

In a world filled with stars.

There are fairies in my poems

Unexplored, unfound.

There are poems in the forest

Waiting to be found.

Picture Credit: Yume Cyan (from the prompt)

.

He has needed you from the moment he first saw you. At first the attention was light and flirtatious and you thought it gave you joy. Then he became more demanding, wanting to walk by your side and watch you while you were sleeping…till he became a part of your life. He came along for movies and parties, even accompanied your family on vacations. Till you realised you are only one of his many conquests. He was hurting you and you had been fool enough not to see it. He is eating into you, bit by bloody bit.

So you told him to leave.

But he won’t.

He sneaks back into your life with false promises and placebos and you cannot get rid of him. As much as you dread it, you know you have to do something about him.

***

It is evening, you are quietly sitting at the water’s edge, deep in contemplation. It is time.

You rise, the water slides off your body as you shake out your hair and pull on a pair of shorts over your wet swimsuit. It is completely still and the wind has dropped, nothing stirs. From behind you, you can hear the sounds of the children as they animatedly discuss their day, bits of music stain the air. You turn towards the sounds but pause and turn away following the narrow path among the overgrown grass. There is no birdsong, only an ominous silence as the stony old path twists and turns away from the house biting into your bare feet … till you reach the ruin of the old out-house that no one ever visits. You climb the few steps, noticing how the weeds have choked the entire stair and think nothing of it. Stones, bricks and broken walls greet you and you enter the cavernous dark. You know there are snakes that inhabit the ruins and you are afraid, but you know you cannot turn away. Not now.

You make your way in the semi-darkness till you reach the short stair-case. A narrow shaft of light falls from between the leaves of the Banyan tree that has made its home on the outer wall. You climb the stairs slowly, your heart is beating wildly even as the stench of decay assaults you. You know what you will find.

***

There he is in front of you. Tall, misshapen and just as grotesque and ugly as you remember. To think that at one time you found him attractive. He looks at you pleadingly, his eyes glimmer hope. The chains clank as he pulls forward but you know they will not give. He rattles his chains; he is, all at once, demanding and pleading and you  almost forget and give in. But something stops you. Maybe it is the recollection that he now threatens your world, your very existence?  He’s always needed you, he is saying, he will never leave you.

But you finally have him locked up. You know that if he becomes strong he will once again run your life, he will once again ruin the life you have been clawing to reclaim. For, if he is strong, he will break the chains that bind him.

You look at him with loathing. Even pity.

***

So what will you do with this Knave, this killer, this terrorist who would riddle your home with bullets if he could?

Will you feed him?

Or will you let him starve to death?

It’s time to act. Now.