Driktso
To Stay or Not to Stay
I am lonesome sore thumbs sticking out,
a wine bottle depleted of its bloody content.
Sometimes I feel worn out like the handwoven
carpet in my room from refugee centre-
it sits there on the floor idle all its white tassels
turned into a colour one cannot specify, only say
that it is far removed from what it was and
should have been. Like my soul discoloured and out of shape
and I sit like the emptied wine bottle on my dresser;
a belt fallen short in length and expired muesli.
But you pick out the dried cranberries and share it
among your siblings.
The carpet that has lost its edge to rambunctious
nibbling giant Time rats speaks to me in every brush
of its bristle on my naked sole.
All our lives we hoard groceries for the pantry;
time after time like the people we meet.
But we lie on as carpets that we wear and tear with time.
Getting discoloured with every wash and dry cleaning
Thinning with every brush and vacuum
Newer televisions are installed every year,
fresher vegetable every three days
but the carpet stays and the carpet remembers.
The carpet rolls and lies flat like me;
But I stay with me and even if you have nibbled every
Edge and thread of me. I can’t throw myself out-
I stay
I stay after the show’s over honey.
I fucking stay
Volatile Hearts
Panting chests and flowing fluids
melt into one another
and perform Karmamudra
Flow into each other and break
free -
all senses resonate with your
universe;
all senses burn with anguish;
all senses quiver with sensation;
all senses are drawn by your
breath.
There was a surge tonight.
They told me -
Aaju bhakkano phutyo;
making your body shiver in delight.
Floating on a body you painted over a
river
and row yourself down the river.
Then leave your body
and walk to your inner self.
Icy gale slicing your cheeks;
deaf pines sway in your rhythm;
and flow into a rivulet;
bend and break upon a boulder.
The fragmented Home Repertoire
Mirrors chipped of their silver with time;
past corrupted of its truth by gas lighters;
books torn off their pages by angered
preteens;
And our lives furling and unfurling,
all the same like fresh blooming daisies and
touch-me-nots.
Momola’s chupa bereft of its shine with age;
radios and transistors bleeding of mustard
radium;
wooden doors that warp during monsoon;
my body contracting and releasing,
yet the more
gnawing on enough churpi to dislocate my jaw.
Ceramic plates that crack inside the
microwave;
tin boxes stored in the kitchen cupboard all
dented;
threads of thick old suktu at home coming out
loose;
your spine that bends and twists,
that with every
heartbreak dissolves in air,
leaving you amorphous
Neon jackets making heads turn in crowded
places;
lather smudged over dry and cracked hands;
mother’s old purses restored and
acknowledged;
our bodies that heal from every cut and
fracture,
turning away from vaccines and wincing in
pain
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