Scheduled

chase the mid-day

blues away

well before

the nightfall;

it is not wise

to let the ghosts

of the afternoon

befriend the shadows

of the night.

©Aaysid

Road Trips

in the back seat

the inside noise

slowly disappears,

and only the subtle

sounds remain,

such as that of

quiet breathing

and gentle

foot tapping

to nothing

but the soft rhythm

of your

beating heart;

with the windows

rolled down

to let the wind

in your hair

blow away

the feeling

of cornered despair,

the life

that you knew

before you

were here becomes

just a blur.

©Aaysid

Working Late

Tonight I shall be working late, but it will be all right. It has to be.

I am a fan of my own playlist. I have added a few new songs to it and this one song by Taylor Swift lasts for ten minutes. One can do a lot in ten minutes. I might not get anything done though.

There is so much that goes on outside my window. Even this late at night. Someone is always awake and decides to be on the other side of their windows. Unlike me.

I can see very little from the slit between the curtains. It is too dark. Nobody has any lights turned on. It feels a little suffocating to be looking out from this tiny an opening. My tiny room seems a lot bigger in comparison. Maybe nobody has any work to do tonight. Good for them.

I had a movie, Horse Girl, queued for this weekend. I forgot about it last night. I cannot watch it now. Not if I want to get any work done.

I played a short audiobook in the background as I was editing a document. I feel guilty now. I only have a vague idea as to what it was about. Should I mark it as read on my list? It feels wrong.

I wish I had some dark chocolate. The weather app on my phone tells me that it is very pleasant tonight. I wish I was on the other side of the windows too.

I wonder what you are doing tonight…

Aaysid

Featured image from Pexel

Frozen

To be only

A small stroke

Of a brush,

A paint drip

Or just a tiny

Unplanned smudge,

Might not feel

That rough

If it lets you

Live it out

On a canvas,

And lets you

Stay frozen

In an artistic

Little moment;

It might not

Seem a lot,

But it could mean

So much.

©Aaysid

Borrowed

she sees you

and the woolen scarf

wrapped snuggly

around your neck,

but does not say

a word;

the things

which we borrow

are not ours

to keep,

the warmth

that we steal

might not even

be real.

©Aaysid

Choices

Always the ripples,

But never the stone,

All you have sometimes

Is an illusion of a choice-

To be a mellow instigator

Or an ineffective,

Transient aftermath…

©Aaysid

“There are no safe choices. Only other choices.”

Libba Bray

Shooting Out

We become meteors

To escape

The constellations

In which our stars

Are deemed

Neither bright enough

Nor warm enough;

Is it strange that those

Who keep looking up

Feel hope when

We shoot out

From the sky?

Maybe it is worthwhile

To dim

Your dwindling light

If it can help irradiate

Someone else’s life.

©Aaysid

Tricked

your expired ambition

leaks into your nightmares,

and then something

within you gets shaken,

but not your conviction,

that you still make sense,

and that you can keep

up the fiction!

©Aaysid

Outgrowth

It is frightening

To outgrow places faster

Than you can outgrow

The people you share

Them with, and to feel

As if you have become

A wrong kind of person

For all the right

Kind of things out there,

But still not be

Able to leave.

©Aaysid

“I was mortified by the prospect of becoming hopelessly trapped in someone else’s story.”
Lionel Shriver, We Need to Talk About Kevin

Featured image from Pexels

Healing

I shall be quiet,

I shall not speak

For a while,

I shall not see anything

That shall require

Processing in

My recuperating brain,

And I shall not listen

To anything

That I should not be

Listening to anyway,

But I shall still be here,

Just not taking it in;

How tough it is

To let yourself heal

In a world

That does not

Let you disappear,

But might not even care

If you, in fact,

Manage to disappear!

©Aaysid

Featured Image from Pexels

Too Credulous

A few short poems trying a little too hard to make sense:

I.

as I lie awake

I keep thinking about

how I had crossed the path

of a black cat today;

I hope he is okay.

II.

we are two birds in a cage,

but the cage isn’t real

and neither are you.

III.

life is weird

and we are weirder,

why are we not then winning?

©Aaysid

 “A man finds he has been wrong at every preceding stage of his career, only to deduce the astonishing conclusion that he is at last entirely right.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

Disconnection

As if bored

In its very meninges,

My brain now creates

Artificial memory!

There are flashes

Of unfamiliar faces,

Strange places-

Of these hallways

That diverge

Never to converge;

I yearn

For déjà vu,

I miss the mind

That I knew.

©Aaysid

“The attempt to escape from pain, is what creates more pain.”
Gabor Maté

Blackout Poetry – II

I prefer the same

coward heart to fight

an utterly impossible fight;

I fail to honour

the reality – my romanticism!

©Aaysid

Shared

a fleeting sense

of association

catches you off guard

when you look

at someone

and they nod

as to concede

that just by being

another person,

something unspoken

does in fact exist

between the two of you,

and that’s that.

©Aaysid

Timebound

If you try

To measure time

In scattered moments,

Heavily burdened

With solitude,

The universe

Might lose a few

Heartbeats for a while,

But to you

It might seem

Like a lifetime.

©Aaysid

“The house was very quiet, and the fog—we are in November now—pressed against the windows like an excluded ghost.”

E.M. Forster

The Quiet

I can hear

the noise

as it creeps

ever so slightly

into spaces

left vacant

by the absurd

everyday quiet;

my thoughts

weigh me down

at times,

and it makes

no sense to sleep

with a mind

this broken,

with the eyes

wide open…

I silently

make peace

with the noise.

©Aaysid

The Cake Mix

If I could be any food,

I think I’d be a cake,

No, wait, I’d be its batter,

That way I might

Actually learn to keep

It all together!

©Aaysid

Photo by Diana Akhmetianova from Pexels

🙉

if I could be any emoticon,

I’d gladly be the monkey

with his hands on his ears;

how liberating it is

to be your monkey-self

by choosing not to hear

anything that isn’t

monkey out there!

©Aaysid

In the Skies

An electric blue kite

Soars high, gets lost

In the mineral blue

Of the sky,

And now you are holding

The mighty stratosphere

With just a string

In your sweaty hand;

Your troubles begin

To shrink, and the moment

You are in feels grand,

And you don’t want it

To come crashing down

With your kite,

At least, not for a while.

©Aaysid

Unwell

I feel my body breaking,

and if I can help it

in any way,

you know, just to

speed things along,

I’d happily split

it four ways;

a part of me

can be off to work,

and another can do

all the thinking,

one-fourth of me

can still be polite,

so that a part of me

is allowed to be

sick in peace

for a few days!

©Aaysid

“Life. We’d long known it was cruel.”

Nova Ren Suma

Strong?

they mistake me for someone

who can move mountains

and not look one bit raddled,

when, in fact, I am as strong

as the short naps that I take,

as that one giant gulp of coffee

I choke on and retake.

©Aaysid

Conflicted

when the cynic in me

takes a day off,

the optimist in me

comes out to hang out,

but the realist in me

has my inner introvert

on the speed dial;

the idealist in me

rolls eyes and storms out!

©Aaysid

“Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together.”

Ray Bradbury