24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Being a Toddler Teacher has its Ups and Downs
They stomp along the carpet line, croc-ed
feet following the blue and red.
We are the Dinosaurs plays
loud on the speaker, tells
them to rest, to eat,
marching, marching.
What do you
think of
that?
The breeze caressed my face
As I turned the page in the novel I’m reading
With a cup of coffee
Sitting on the balcony facing a garden
Roses, tulips, and jasmine
along with basil, and a few other herbs
carefully tended to for both vegetation
and aesthetic pleasure
A small bird taking a shower
in the water fountain and bird shower
A golden running around the garden
getting the freshly mown grass-green on its mane
An instrumental music playing behind
Of a post rock band I discovered recently
I turn another page in the novel
and take a sip from the cup of coffee
My office decorated with papers
my poetry and musings attached across the wall
my notice board, filled with strings and thumbtacks
and a bunch of books, waiting to be read
A guitar placed on the stand
with the amplifier close by
Recording equipment set aside
and my favorite Vinyl records lying around
Nothing says home like a place
where one feels most natural
This is where I am at home
When I am propelled to do what’s meaningful
-Surya T
entered together
forest morning still and calm
the journey begins
travel companion
makes no sound in early hours
i find empty shells
Concealing storms underneath the feet,
slippery with mustard seeds, walking on
Edges crease, burning holes with use.
There is a pontla* throbbing between the palms
That can be carried everywhere, that burden of dreams that seep into
A womb that speaks quietly to the feet,
Now covered in the toil and tears, with
Crushed mustard seeds underneath .
* pontla Bengali word meaning a small bundle of things
I can still remember the exact moment
The rosy tint was wiped off of my glasses.
I was eight, and at 26 now
I still don’t know if he knows
This one seemingly small moment was
The impetus of my changed worldview.
The moment that knocked me out
Of my family’s orbit and turned me into the enemy.
A moment, so small,
Yet somehow changed everything.
I was bored, you see.
We’d been at a museum the whole day
And I was a child, over it and ready to go home.
Fingers clasped onto my neck;
My cue to knock it off.
I explained, in my childlike way,
That we didn’t need to like the same things while
Fingers dug into the sweat at the back of my neck.
All I said was that I wasn’t interested
And fingernails became talons digging further.
He whispered daggers into my ears
He gave me everything and this was my penance.
I was nothing if not for what he had molded me into.
The next month was spent learning to be a lady.
Quiet please, no slouching, don’t dare to make waves.
One moment turned into a countdown, a mantra.
I made you, you’re nothing.
Sit down, shut up, move on.
What he didn’t know was that being a nerd
Has its advantages.
By ten, one of the most well-read kids in class.
Twelve, in advanced classes.
Fourteen, I was rocking extracurriculars.
All this to say that at sixteen,
When I had my first girlfriend
I was smart enough to go back to those lessons.
Shut up, don’t make waves.
Ten years later,
I’m the one everyone at the holidays
Rolls their eyes at and whispers about
In corners, but I’m not ashamed.
I am nothing like what they tried to mold.
My compassion isn’t lesser,
My kindness is a strength unknown to them,
And all I can feel now all these years later is pity
That they will never step far enough out
Of a self-contained bubble to greet
The real world and her people.
By Northeastern
At the street, behind the black jagged fence, the dirt rises
higher than the rest. A new grave. The earth is pummeled, worms
crawling towards the sky, engulfed by air and clouds. A balloon
twists in the wind, a golden 5 masked by the foil flowers
floating with it. I drive by and hope I’m missing the sight
of another number, not wanting a child to have died.
I tell myself the 5 is for the five new mounds, unearthed
by the curbside, and shake the image away. I wave
knowing that they want to be here, to be remembered,
even when they’re trapped beneath cold markings of lives once lived,
want to be loved, warm hearts once beating ‘til their final ba-boom.
Having time to find the perfect place
almost demands being in the perfect place to leave.
Landlords reward good tenancy with rent increases
so paying month to month increases the urgency.
Almost demands being in the perfect place to leave,
but can a place be found perfect sight unseen
or right after it’s been vacated?
Landlords reward good tenancy with rent increases
so someone is always fleeing the scene, looking
and, finding, at the last minute, something perfect.
So paying month to month increases urgency
and everyone is urgently looking for the perfect place
even if they thought they already had it when they first moved.
(Author’s note: the sad thing is, this is pretty much my internal dialogue every morning)
Hey.
Hey… hey you…
Hey…
Hey!!
It’s time to get up
C’mon, you know it’s time
No, don’t pull on my arm
No, don’t pull me back to bed
I know the covers are warm
And I know the hedgehog is huge and soft
I know how it feels when you hug it
But it’s time
It’s time to wake up…
No… you… not five minutes… now
Now
Fine, fine, ten more minutes – no five more
Why did you change it to ten??
NO. Five Minutes.
Hey…
Hey…?
Wake up