Fuming

Shackled, pinned down
In a mind that rages,
Wails, bawls, throws a temper,
And boils over in contempt
Over its own spinelessness.

I forget to blink sometimes,
Consciously choose not to do so
at other times,
Afraid of succumbing
To the darkness of it all—
The sheer helplessness,
A profound inability
To do anything but watch
A few diabolical souls
Wield inequitable power
And wreak havoc on mankind…

I do not know
How to be here anymore,
Where to go,
Or even where to look anymore.
I am sorry for being here
And not being able
to change a thing.
I am sorry, my endlessly fuming mind,
For not being here at all.

©Aaysid

“Nothing is harder on the soul, than the smell of dreams, while they’re evaporating.”

Mahmoud Darwish

Featured image from Pexels

A Lifeline

I feel like I am disappearing,
Diminishing, falling to bits,
Getting too small
Unlike a news-clipping
From an isolated event
I was once featured in —

Neither the protagonist,
Nor the villain,
Rather a bystander,
Mentioned not by name,
But by a weird chance
Of being in the right moment
At the wrong time,
Midway through a sneeze,
Awkward, ludicrous,
Unfit for the scene,
But suited to the affair
For these very quirks.

Tucked reverently, however,
Inside a treasured book
Kept on the nightstand,
Laminated, and visited often
By that one person
Who imagines themselves
To be an anchor, a lighthouse
For a spirit adrift,
A gatherer of remnants
Of a soul amiss.

©Aaysid

“How could she tell him that we come to love those who save us?”

Jenna Blum, Those Who Save Us

AI generated featured image by Microsoft Designer

Humbled

To be merely
A small stroke
From a brush,
A paint drip,
Or even a tiny
Unplanned smudge,
On a primed canvas,
Or on a canvas
Still rough,
Might just be too much
If it allows you
To become a part of
An artistic moment;
Disguised, yet,
Recognizable as such.

©Aaysid

“My name is Nobody.”
Homer, The Odyssey

AI generated featured image by Microsoft Designer

Connected

Plucked daisies in an open carton,
Sunday bazaar, and a long-pleated skirt,
With an ineptly crocheted scarf,
Crow-feet at the outer edges of bleary eyes.

Half-past ten there and also in the kitchen
In her home where the last night’s stew stews
Over the stove she forgot to turn off,
And the other heads turn skyward more often
Than they turn sideways – towards her.

Fearing the ominous sky about to rain
In a city that suffers miserably
Like an immunocompromised person
Does in the viral outbreaks,
But it is one of the many worries
That also exists outside of her head.

A silent, shared dilemma,
That momentarily feels like a connection
Stronger than the one she has with her isolation.

©Aaysid

“Your heart, Bessie, is an autumn garage.”

J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

AI generated featured image by Microsoft Designer