As I scan through my Instagram feed
I come across posts bartering poems for shoutouts.
They read, “ The best entry shall receive a shoutout from our side”.
But I want to know, “ Can poems written to be won, ever win? “
For when I write, I write to be relieved
Of the obstinate gibber stone that squats
On my chest for long
I write to commune with my
Caged canary’s mellifluous but ignored song.
When the world sleeps and I
Wake up to suffer, I hold the pen
I hold the pen to let the words
Strangulating my diaphragm meander
Onto the paper, through the nib
As the pen wriggles on the sheet,
I hear a lullaby being crooned that rocks me to sleep.
They say, you need to be a poetry first
To scribble one.
But I doubt, am too plain
A poetry to be adored.
Am not always the dripping beauty
Of blossoms of mahogany in a spring
Or the gratification that a
Doting company is expected to bring.
You might not find me in the
Shades of smudged colours on chapped lips
Stenching of unfaithful men
Cursing, yet pleading and yelling for fidelity
Or lost between convoluted neurons
Trying to figure out why my mind
Doesn’t let sunshine to slither in.
Most of the time I’m just the rhythm
Of the clinking of my mother’s bangles
Or the abiding tears which refuse to be held back
When I embrace her, for its been long
Since she was last held.
Or may be I am the dust laden
Forgotten, abandoned cardboard box
And the reclusive, forlorn one
Out of a pair of socks.
I don’t know, whether being drenched
In the orange light of the morning sky
And smiling to let go of statements
That I know are a lie
Or repeatedly reminiscing the hurdles
That I’ve so gracefully overcome, to tell myself
That I am capable to be loved, by not you
Not them, but my own self,
Matter to you or not
But they mean the world to me
And I write only on things
That matter to me.
And I feel that my words easily
Carve their way out to the farthest corners
Of the hearts and souls of people and even writers
For I’ve heard that poets and poetesses
Have naked souls.
But I have never written to win
For I don’t know what it takes
For a poem to win.
And I want to know, “ Can poems written to be won, ever win? “