IN HER DEFENCE

She finally ripped off the bandages and let the wounds breathe.

Unapologetic of choosing to repair of what they broke, she bought herself time to heal.

They cannot peg her for emotionally stunted just because she doesn’t have abandonment issues anymore.

Her personality change is not a pathology they can pride themselves on having diagnosed.

She picks her own battles today and finds nothing worth gratuitous self-flagellation.

She has evolved as the underdog warrior you wished you wagered on not led astray by your ill-founded assumption.

They find her new-found strength out of character.

Suffice it to say, she does not need anyone to validate her.

If you borrow my lens, her petite stature gets augmented by my perspective.

May be we all have to be a little messed up before we step up and turn assertive?

The art of moving on doesn’t lend itself well to the practice of keeping old friends.

Some folks can only see one in the state of emotional shambles on one’s beam ends.

So she leaves behind a trail of bruised memories, questioning faces and old strife.

She tenaciously got herself to first base with life.

Yet there are no bridges they wouldn’t burn, no earth they wouldn’t scorch to bring her to her alcoholic bottom.

As time goes by, the grief contains itself with her face no longer wine-sodden.

That old sore is a bold scar on her frame she wears as a badge of honor.

Unbeknownst to many, one dreamy night she was reborn upon wings gossamer.

BUTTERFLIES

Her mouth whispering in nearly silent accompaniment

Her footsteps can be traced to a musical merriment

Where they all create a dulcet symphony

Sanity is not a choice for her as they make rhythm of her poetry

Among all, he strums gently before he croons a song

She sees those eyes outshining the throng

Love-sick, as luck would have it, she can’t hold this racing feel

She resigns to the restlessness that will follow the fortune’s wheel

How profoundly little she knows about how he feels

Will Venus get him to fall head over heels

Like a wordsmith she could even charm her way out of a bullet so far

Speechless though now, she stares at the night sky looking for a shooting star

She has never paid court to anyone but him

Love-struck follow no protocol but whim

His melodies brighten her life aspiring trust eyes

Guilty as charged he gave her butterflies

WHY NOT BE STRANGERS?

What broke was heard too loud at a distance of miles

We were tongue-tied, catatonic, defeated with pain beyond cries

Went back and forth a few rounds of accusation and questions

Finally transcending an understanding flouting all reasons

A strange part of ours still flourishes in each other’s spiritual cores

One day we’ll shed our mortal coils healing our hurtful sores       

Till then we part our ways and presume to be strangers

Pretend not to hear those melodies of lost hearts, be content playing vagabond rangers

Let this light blind us so we don’t see a shadow of each other

No hopes, no desires, no expectations would not harm either

When you are met with novel warmth in strangeness

Why not wear those swanky masks and venture into new wilderness

Where we see no trace of each other’s tear-stained visage

Let’s honor what we had by paying an unthinkable homage

Sobbed enough standing helpless at opposite sides of a deadly door

Let’s bottle in our hearts and bury in the deeps what sustained us before

The mist of time will obscure the love, putting off the past flames.
We’ll be each other’s psychic healers as we molt our fleshly frames.

EMPTY UTOPIA

Empty utopia never meant to be inhabited

Such dreamy hearts playing architects of a low ilk

They conjured an illusory order to those gossamer castles

Concealing the murderous reality, writing those wishful fables

Patent crevices on those flimsy structures ignored

Grim shards of skin spread where the dead ghosts roared

Dead with no face assume a deceptive appearance

Sharp claws betray the marks of the beasts in reference

Lofty dreams all gone by an unruly maelstrom

Cradling the monsters in those tattered clothes dancing feverishly in a prom

A world once ripe with warmth, now brims with shadows drowning consciousness in path

What fills the sight is a sad fate of discarded bones of absent lovers,

And a jaundiced bequest of want possessing the cadavers

Two specters trampled under the stomping feet of obvious choices

How the monopoly time once choked their cooing voices

They still live as a jumble of ghosts under the myth of salvation

Their stitches toying with their wounds, flaunting abject privation

ANOTHER EDEN LOST

( This poem reflects on the staggering male-female ratio in many parts of Asia due to a lingering cultural preference for boys. It is a take on female infanticide and crime against women.)

In the shadow of angry brutes and copious squeals she walks

Refracted and bent, starved inside the infinity of her skin,

stumbling through the rocks

There’s no healing for her for only pain makes history

She mocks the gods we assume watch over in their sublime glory

This time it’s not the fall of Eve but the doom of entire humanity

as the last woman on the earth approaches the threshold of death, humoring some patriarch’s vanity

No darkness weighs anything for her; she has seen her sisters getting raped

A hapless witness of deflowered women or girls teenaged

How the beddings of our fathers now reek of the virgin blood

She issues forth a deep sigh when memories of graceless mutiny flood back with a thud

Scantily clad young innocent girls with crumbling time line

Suffering ethical rape, unpaid rape, rape paid or rape with ‘harmless design’

Suffocated them in mogul harems, grabbed them from behind

Tamed them with improbable stories by preachers and religion blind

Ripping more than their skins, not even sparing their female fetus

With so called corrective violence within the four walls

They marred the contours of Venus

When honor killings or women burnt were reduced to mere statistic(s)

And indifferent male establishment dismissed such bloodshed as trivially criminalistic

Soon enough the hitherto heard sweet laughs were to be gone

Entailing the poor womankind, savagery is what you won.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Vitriol requited while love was not,

Curious are the ways of world, what eludes is 

is what you dearly sought.

The one who goes back on words

wishes meaningful faith from the one who still hurts.

Right when you wish to console the claimed victim,

I realize he moved on feeding me some excuse grim.

There's no denying that he still pains on certain weekdays.

He finds it more severe than my lasting heartache.

Or may be like anyone I just want to fix the blame.

You come an easy target as you don't look the same.

Let's say love consumed you and hurt consumed me.

What propriety demanded you to show up on that funeral so cheerful and carefree?

Don't bother. This Eid too, in the feast of a clan,

the slaughtered scapegoat still saves grace for a man.

If it helps! A butchered heart has no wounds to staunch,

but just countless dreams and a vague want.

Forget about dying, not every time you can have your way.

My prayers might have failed way back but today is my day.

When my words hurt, hold me silly ; when they don't, take me wise

I sniff it and write, I might just sniff it one day and die.

For dead are not subject to any angst and disgrace

especially ones who depart pining for a sweet embrace.

SILENT SCREAMS

There you lurk with those gingerly steps, all for a sadist laugh.

Ensnared by the bait, yet another Leda is charmed by the mighty Swan.

As if it was not enough already, once again you instill the same pain.

Having spurned her unceremoniously, you yearn to witness her spirits wane.

Why would you bring her to same masochistic self? Why would you have her feeble?

Haven't you preyed on her flesh enough? Couldn't we spare her of your design evil?

Why feign feelings? Why cast another sinister hex?

Why shed her blood once more? It's not been long since you ruffled her nest.

Curiously, when you tear her with gnawing claws, we see you thriving in your guilt.

With a strange air of martyrdom, she embraces all hurt at her peril.

A grin spreads on your face when she chokes soft sobs.

Possessed by a feral passion, you draw her pulling her locks.

With the time, the terrors grew and you gave a content sigh.

I swear on God, the morbid struggle didn't pain her but your lie.

Aye, you loved her just as any predator is fixated on his prey.

Gracing her with silent screams and a perpetual pain,
your might holds sway.