i write because
gmail doesn’t have a separate section for my heart’s drafts.
on saturdays that merge into sundays like love into grief,
i sit and try to pen down all that i think.
my lips are wine stained & my hands with ink,
i find myself in a mess of leaking pens and heart.
gmail doesn’t have a separate section for my heart’s drafts.
i think it’s going to rain and it smells of Frank O’Hara,
i get high on coke and i just hate my guts.
cheap wine in a dive bar, i’m writing poetry –
i think about a million thoughts like how i felt after i lost me.
one thought hardly fades before another surfaces like seeds after germination.
i’m killed with commitment issues and i thrive on academic validation.
i think i have a mind that wants to kill me and a heart who would be grateful if that happened.
i have trouble letting go of the past tense.
peas in a pod make me happy until i think i’m one too.
soft and tiny and nothing and could be crushed under the weight of a shoe.
still, i think. still, i rise. still, i craft. still, i’m art.
a mess, sure. but aren’t we all?
words spill from cracked lips, a waterfall of want and hurt,
each line a rib exposed, a glimpse at the beating mess inside.
i am a kaleidoscope of contradictions, ever-shifting, never still,
a maelstrom of emotions, raw, unfiltered, wholly unrefined.
maybe that’s what makes the words ring true,
this bleeding honesty, this willingness to bemess and unbend.
i am not neat metaphors, not refined taste,
i am the dregs at the bottom of the glass, bittersweet and uncompromising.
pour me out, drink me down, for i will not be contained.
i am the punk rock poet, screaming into the uncaring void,
hurling profanities at the uncaring universe that gave me this chaos to embody.
i am a live wire, sparking and hissing, impossible to protect yourself from.
shock me, i dare you, for in that lightning strike of feeling,
perhaps you’ll become alive like the tempest that rages within.
this is no pretty poetry of flowers and romance,
this is the guttural roar of the human condition.
i don’t spin delicate webs of lovely words to catch your eye,
i vomit forth this fearsome reality, unchained and undisguised.
-Nikhat Parveen
About the Poet-
Nikhat Parveen, from India, is an English Literature student at the University of Delhi. Her poetry often delves into the intricate landscapes of grief, striving to capture its essence in words.
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