Beautiful

They say you're weak,

But I think you're strong,

Because its not that easy,

To give up your life,

To act against instinct,

And they will never get it.

They’re there when you’re dead,

But what use is that,

When no one heard your screams,

Your bitter sobs and cries for help,

That wiped your whole soul clean?

Why would their thoughts matter,

When they were never there,

How could they even get it?

They think they’re right,

that they have the right,

To pass divine judgement.

But no one gave them that right,

To decide if you should live,

That’s your choice, and yours alone.

Maybe, as sad as it is,

Its the only thing that is.

You tried so hard to hide the tears.

To gather up your strength,

You wanted to live,

You wanted to laugh,

But you were never given the chance.

They hurt you the worst possible way,

They tried to take your choice,

They may not have made the decision,

But it was they who took your life.

Faint eerie cries from a distant wasteland,

Calling out your name,

The Hanging Man beckons you near,

And their phantom hands are pushing you to him.

You don’t really want to fall through the Veil,

But do you really have a choice?

What is there in this world for you,

Besides tears, pain and lies?

No one wants you,

No one cares,

Nobody notices how broken you are.

Their eyes brush past you in the hall,

Their words fly over your head,

You’re invisible,

You don’t exist,

So why are you even there?

They say that suicide it for the weak,

Because it does not eliminate the bad,

It eliminates the chance for good,

But why would you take that chance?

Why would you hope when you have no heart,

Just an organ circulating blood?

Why would you want to take a risk,

When there’s no one to stop your fall?

Nothing scares you anymore,

Because you may be here for now,

But you know that maybe tomorrow,

You won’t be here at all.

There may be a wake in the cemetery,

That’s about a block from your house,

Or you could be sitting where you are.

The sky would still be blue,

The stars would still be bright in the night sky.

The sun would rise,

And so would the moon,

And the seasons will continue their cycle,

You don’t see what would change if you died,

So why not?

You’ve reached a point where you’re not sad,

You’ve gone beyond that point,

You’re just tired to the bones.

Your whole body aches with it,

You’re tired of this whole darn life.

The voices are killing you,

They taunt you in your sleep,

They jeer and taunt your very being,

Even when the sun has reached its peak.

They haunt your every day routine,

They follow you to your room,

They follow you down the road to the grocers,

They haunt you as you move.

Reality is a prison for you,

And some part of you hopes,

That once you’re gone,

And buried six feet under,

That maybe someone would come and see.

Maybe they would put flowers on your grave.

And for once.

For once in your whole darn life.

You would be beautiful.

Better Off Not Living

We try so hard to fit in,

But somewhere we all go wrong,

That’s not who we are, or who we want to be.

But the pain will never stop.

They shove at you,

They jeer and punch,

They insult you and they make you feel horrid.

They have no clue what they’ve done.

Our soul peeks out of dirty curtains,

That are supposed to hide the beauty,

Of a loving, caring individual.

But the world will never see.

Why should you live in a world like this,

Where you find no appreciation,

No love, no friends, no family.

You’d rather die a quick death.

So under jeers and shoves,

Under taunting laughs and hands tugging your hair,

You make your final decision.

You welcome it.

A day later, your body is found,

Hung from a fan in an empty room,

But no one cares, and no one cries.

Maybe you’re better off not living.

Silence

Dark windows and dirty window sills,

Pale hands on the windowpane,

Haunted and hollow, gleaming eyes,

Breathy sighs and silent screams.

Bloody wrists in a silent room,

Cuts and scars marring white,

Drops of velvet red rubies,

Falling from a height and then.....

Cold tiles.

Cloudy skies and no sunlight,

Frozen teardrops and pale blue frostbite,

sobs that echo throughout a hardened wasteland,

And on deadened wood hangs an escape.

Desperate gasps of air, and a chair,

Fallen aside in disregard,

Bleaky eyes with no sight,

And then.....

Stillness.

Rushing water, murky and dark,

No moonlight and no starlight,

A silent, deadened stare at a reflection that does not exist,

A saddened, resigned exhale.

Resolve thickens and eyes are shut,

A chest rises and falls steadily,

The air is surprisingly calm,

And then.....

A splash.

Pillows are fluffed and blankets rearranged,

On the nightstand is a bottle of round white medicine,

And a saddened soul who has nothing more to give,

Reaches for a glass of water.

The pills go down without a hitch,

And she lies down on the bed,

Waiting for oblivion to come,

And then.......

Nothing.

Somewhere in a room lies a ceramic tub,

And a dying, resigned soul,

Pours white chemical on white,

And breathes in the acidic smell.

A body sinks into creamy, white fluid,

Nothing but a final sigh is heard,

And maybe a faint crackling,

Burning flesh and bleach in the air and then....

Silence.

The Procession of Fools

In a small town, far away, but not far enough,

There’s a parking lot, atop a tiny hill,

Where a dozen perfectly chromed silver pick-up trucks,

Are lined up, windows wide open, speakers on full volume.

The music is loud, and a stream of “adults” come out,

Kids dressed in their parents clothes,

The girls caked up with makeup, their hair tied up all proper,

The boys look like walking commercials for a sports brand,

Muscles gleaming with sweat and hair perfect, smirks in place.

Their arms will wrap around a girl’s anorexic waist, gripping just too tight,

And girls will say nothing, because in this town, you don’t get to say no.

Down the hill, you can see the glow of the only shop open this close to midnight,

And you can see the beacon of warmth and capitalism radiating,

Spreading through the homes that have centered themselves around it,

And it’s like watching a hive in action, with the drones and worker bees,

Circling the Queen, being paid minimum wages so that a white kid,

Living in a posh area in the States can live like royalty.

This is how we learnt to stop thinking, to follow the sheep, over the ledge and into the abyss.

Somewhere in the town sits Sarah, quiet, silent and pleading for love,

Sarah was a straight A girl, with perfect hair, and bright brown eyes,

She was pretty, but they said she was fat,

So she turned away the food offered to her,

She learnt to lie and lie,

Her waist became smaller, her face shallow,

And her eyes lost their shine.

This is how we learnt to fit in, to be what people want us to be.

In this town, we learnt to wait in line,

Dressed in short skirts, and bright red stilettos,

Painted lips with dark eye shadow,

Wait for a man to find us worthwhile,

Wait for a man to come along, and teach us how to live,

How to use our parts and put us together,

Piece by piece, leg-breast-arm,

So that we’re useful to them.

Be pretty, be thin, but not too thin,

Be smart, but not too smart,

Because intelligence is a turn off,

So be a lampshade in the corner of a room,

Don’t speak, don’t think, don’t move.

Ria is a simple girl, but she’s never fit in,

She’s larger than her skin, she’s stuck,

She feels like a boy, but who would care?

She’s not a girl, but a boy in a girl’s body,

And oh, how she would love to be a boy,

Be treated like one, be accepted for who she was.

But she doesn’t say a word, as fear runs down her spine,

She doesn’t want to be beaten, to be raped, to be hurt,

She doesn’t want to go through that,

Through that “therapy” that’s actually torture.

This is how we learnt to pretend, to keep our silence, to cry in dark shadows, hidden away.

Fatima doesn’t go to church, but a mosque instead,

She wears a hijab and hides her skin and flesh,

She gets pushed around and they call her things,

“Terrorist”, “Suicide Bomber”,

Not exactly creative, but painful nonetheless,

And now she’s lying on the sidewalk, blood flowing down her wrists and legs,

Tears of pain and sadness, eyes full of incomprehension,

Because some men decided she didn’t have the right to live,

Because she was a Muslim, and because those men were closed-minded twats.

This is how we learn how to be bigoted, self-absorbed pricks, how to break people.

This town isn’t here, though, its far away,

So who cares what happens there, its not our problem,

Its theirs, let them take care of it.

But exactly how far away is far enough,

And since when has humanity been disconnected enough for that to hold true?

[Inspired by the poetry of Lauren Zuniga]

You Changed And Truth Got Lost

Please, come inside my bedroom door and tell me what to do. Tell me how to sleep, how to walk and how to eat. Because sexuality is as natural to me as these actions are to any heterosexual in our country. But please, disregard the fallacy of your backward arguments and continue dictating how I live my life because you can't open your mind to other possibilities, and continue living in the gutter you've dug for yourself.

Please, go ahead and dictate my life, regardless of the fact that we live in a country that flourishes in poverty, a country that can’t seem to feed itself and continuously starves. Disregard the millions of children who can’t get an education and are forced into labour and prostitution. Disregard the criminals you seem to be okay with running the country, and instead, sit and decide what the citizens of the country you make laws for should do behind locked doors.

Go ahead, we don’t mind at all.

We don’t mind that each and every day our politicians loot us of money that our country so desperately needs. We don’t mind that we’re alienated by the government of our own country, denied the right to question authority.

After all, who needs democracy, right? Let’s all regress back to an India where the Indians had no say in what happened. After all, its not the firangs ruling over us now, right? Its absolutely okay for Indians to rule over Indians with an iron fist.

So go ahead, tell us what to do. Tell us how we are wrong, how we don’t have the right. Tell us how we are abominations and that we are cursed, foul creatures sent by the Devil, by Asuras, to darken the world that your God created.

But don’t think that we’ll sit here quietly. We’re not your slaves, and you are not our colonial masters.

Please, instead of going on and on about how we are “modernized”  and a country slowly reaching a “developed” status, have a look inside your own mind. You can’t think beyond your stereotypes and your discriminations.

How can you truly be modern, global individuals with a mind set like that?

What I can hope is that the youth of today will not become like you. We will not allow you to ruin our country for us because you can’t progress with new ways of thinking.

Go ahead and stay in your gutter.

But don’t drag the entire country with you.

Love or Hate?

I stand upon my balcony,
And stare out at the world,
Quietly thinking of where we went wrong,
Was it when we dared to love,
That our hate became so very strong?

Was it at the moment,
That the cords that connect,
Our fragile bodies to our mothers,
Are cut and we are separated?

Is it because we no longer believe,
That any of these things will work,
Our dreams have been replaced,
With Cynicism and Realism?

We let ourselves dream,
Of worlds unknown and unseen,
Only when we hold a book,
So that pages of words will lead.

But then why, my friends,
Do we find it so hard,
To apply that imagination,
That courage?

We fear it, 'tis true,
Because we know not where it leads,
Why should we let our dreams lead us,
To unknown paths and darkness?

Instead we watch a world,
Filled with bloodshed and tears,
With heavy hearts and guilty minds,
Because we are too afraid.

We dare not let ourselves love,
For hate comes so easily,
It hurts much less,
But it bleeds much more.

Our dreams are shattered,
Stomped on by those,
Who declare themselves,
As the ever-present Authority.

But who are they,
To tell us what we can dream of?
Who are they,
To tell us we cannot love?

Is it wrong to want to help another?

Is it wrong to love another?

Why should we care about those pointless things-

Race?

Gender?

Sexuality?

Economic Background?

Why should they dictate to us in any way at all?

At the end, my friends,
The decision is yours alone.
Will you stand tall and give your love,
Or hate and stand alone?