FIVE SHORT PIECES
PENDULUM
It is never full. You always will have that feeling of helplessness,
of desolation that leaves you numb. A silence that is overwhelming. As you sit
upon your bed waking from your slumber, it is there. Wrapping you up in its
arms, choking you and stifling you. And then tears seem a part of your life,
known friends, close companions. You feel incomplete even worthless.
Then you’ve had enough of those salty tears drying upon your
cheeks, of those troubling thoughts that only leave you sad. Enough of everyone
questioning and enough of those who stand mute and helpless just like you,
benumbed to your pain, benumbed to theirs.
Then one day you wipe off your tears, you decide to smile
through the pain, you decide that life is not made this way, you laugh and
rediscover the joys of life, of loved ones, of friends, held close held tight.
You begin to cherish what you have, you begin to work on what you don’t, you
smile, you laugh.
Because that, man is who you are.
Frail, incomplete in one moment and powerful, complete the
very next.
DOGGED DAYS
It was a summer evening that would change everything. Tied
to the tree, two year old Bruno barked his doggy lungs out to his master.
Steve had just turned seventeen and was preparing to party
hard that night with friends.
Ronak had other plans.
His bark lost out to the blaring music as a figure
stealthily climbed up, broke the glass.
Bruno had lost his wits but the music was too great a
competitor
Steve would never turn seventeen, Bruno never turn three.
Ronak would see seven score three but from behind iron bars.
EVERYONE
It’s how they expect you to be. It’s how they say you should
be. To put on that smile when you are crying inside, put on a frown when you are
bursting with glee. Kept that yawn stifled in, keep your aching hands
shriveled, pressed close to your chest.
No chance of respite.
No sign of
relief.
The bottle rattles violently.
Cracks scar the barren land scouting the heavens for a drop
of the colorless elixir
Too modest. Too brutal.
SHATTER
Up, up in the sky the lanterns lit the starry night, leaving
behind an iridescent trail. Her eyes brimmed with tears, life, love oozed out,
out from the heart. It was more than she had hoped for, more than she had dreamt.
Her eyes swept past the trail of lights searching for her love’s arm.
Absence.
She froze right there. Looked around, rubbed her eyes, as
the sun hit on her with all luminosity. Tears flowed again, this time out of
pain. It was just a dream, her dream wedding, just a dream! The irreverent rays
hit the frame on her mantelpiece. A frame of her fiancé a day before he died.
Had he gone up? Up like the lanterns? Perhaps he did. Or was it him in the iridescence? It must be.
ECSTASY
How do you measure it?
Can you?
Does anything measure up?
Can anyone?
Smile of a newborn
Glorious sunset
Lick of a dog
Words of a poet
Waiting to be found
Found to be lost