The Poetry Marathon

She is dead,

My tiny little potted plant

Her leaves scattered 

Just below the loft

Dry and lifeless she lay

Dead stalk shivering

As the wind swayed

The loft so high

Oh! Who could have done it?

I glared angry at the sun

You must have scorched

My poor plant to dust

Oh! Who could have done it?

I swore at the dripping hose 

You swamped my poor little thing

Flooded her roots

Oh! Who could have done it?

I accused the harsh winds

You shook her tender stalk 

Till she bent

Oh! Who could have done it?

I raged at the storm

Your lightning struck her 

Little spirit out 

Oh! Who could have done it?

I screeched at the pot

You suffocated her growing spirit

Stunted her to death

Her leaves rustled

As if greeting me for one last time

I could hear her whisper

But where were you?

He is not a man. 

I don’t like adding

 a possessive pronoun to an ex-person 

who held my life in prison

 I broke free. 

And I abhor any part of my history

 That’s connected to him

The hell and the heathen of his shadows

I cringe when I have to add ‘my’

To any part of speech that

 contains the traces of his

Dark dark fingerprints

 Even in disgust, 

I hate addressing

 the ex-person 

with a possessive pronoun.

 Something of mine

 is so intimate

 that I want none of his claws

to find it again. 

His very name 

can sully ‘my-ness’ of me

 I broke free 

of the prison he held of my life

Why then, 

Should I attach a possessive pronoun

 to that unknown

 unwanted X in my life?

Chapbook of a day
Every hour’s a page
Restless thoughts that take a pause
in the cradle of warbly words

Chapbook of a day
Every hour’s a page
dripping emotions set free
by seeping deep into expressions

Chapbook of a day
Every hour’s a page
Overwhelming some said
challenging some thought

Chapbook of a day
Every hour’s a page
A million tales woven into a few lines
A million lives lived in a day

Chapbook of a day
Every hour’s a page
lost at the fraying edges
found in the inky heart

Latent buzz of heat
Inching deep under my skin
Every night, I wake up to
How much I need you
How much I want you
To touch your fingertips with my lips
And sing at the glory of electric nerves
Every night, I wake up to
Musings buried deep inside me
Of how beatific you’d look
Splayed under me, for me
Slightly hazy at the edges
Like a dream made for me
Every night, I wake up to
Sighs and wishes, sinful, to say the least
Of passions that never felt so deep
For anyone else but you
Every night, I wake up to
A sleepless yearning that hollows out
Aching with the loss of what I never had
The right to call you mine

I whispered to the winds about you
Tales so heavy they couldn’t carry too
Of crumbling hopes and unheard wishes
Sighs that swept away molten mirths

I whispered to the winds about you
All those musings pinned on you
Sullen queries and bitten out lies
Hesitance that seeped into our ties

I whispered to the winds about you
Things I never dared to tell you
How lovely that face still feels
How precious that touch still is

I whispered to the winds about you
About my shameful, clumsy ways too
Selfishly greedy for every tiny bit
Of your warmth, I could steal and keep

I whispered to the winds about you
Hopelessly pining for my love true
Of the fallacy of dreams and forever
When reality seems so far from tender

I whispered to the winds of missing you
All those sweet nothings I’d tell you