Young Writers Society

Day 1/30



~we are the besieged~


it begins with the fluttering and the shuttering
of eyes, of flimsy membrane dyed red
against the heat—and the realisation
that not all is as it seems.

you are an empty house in afternoon lethargy,
with flies buzzing at the shutters
and the wind halting when the sun
never does.
an overused proverb is knocking at your door.

but

was it a dream or
was it a dreaming? or was it
an easy lie? the climax
is uprooted with the hoisting open
of windows with sun ray sticks

(but never tearing the membrane apart).

you are a house buzzing
with dust and fatigue, walls
in a glass case full of sunlight.
you are a house and the windows are open; your eyes
are a laze in the bright light, trying
to make out the whirring
of a grease-covered fan amidst the chaos of noon.
a prisoner, a fly entangled in moth-eaten covers.
you register dimly the knocking

of a proverb at your door; liars are
only proactive at noonday.

Day 2/30

i have begun to suspect that the wind is attila~

this is a secret, between you and the ceiling,
and the skele-tins in your cupboard—so please
listen. listen like the wind has forgotten
to rap against your window tonight, like he has forgotten your name, and the sky's name,
and the names of why&how&when.
listen
like the wind listens, on an empty, vacuum-filled night.

and please—lock the door; i do not care for the way,
the wind and his cronies barge in
without warning
and listen to all i say—even with bated breath,
in whispers, mouth pressed against the rim
of my eleventh cup of tea.

(i have begun to suspect that the wind is attila.)

and because this is a secret, you must promise
that you will not tell the ghosts in the attic, or the moths,
crushed between old paperbacks, of what i have said.
you must promise, because what originates in the attic
is not very likely to remain there.

(close the windows.
close the doors. and listen
to the voices in the cupboard
where i have soaked the bones of my skeletons
in bleach, and rubbed the dirt
off their skulls with sandpaper.)

and ignore the wind; i have begun to suspect
that it is with him the gossip vine begins.

Day 3/30

I wish I were laconic

I have spent far too many nights
writing empty sonnets to an emptier sky--
without heart, and planting lackadaisies
in a concrete garden, where the outgrowth
is tangential.

Too many nights--too much poetry
to be swept off the desktop and burnt
on the stove; to be drowned
in the sink; to be left
on your doorstep to make incense-sticks with.

4/30

The importance of 1:42

I never took advanced maths in school, but I can tell
1:42 is important—after moping? After mourning? At most?—a.m.
And the A.C talks in its sleep, like it is remembering
summers of long ago—times
I can barely recall, even as I sit staring at the walls
and willing their off-course-white to empower me.
(When I was a child, I thought the A.C was magic.)

I am filled with regret, most nights, some days
acceptance—regrettance?—and worry. The saucer
clatters every time I adjust the lamplight,
the water in the glass creating ripples
against its rim.
(When I was younger, I called them rimmles.)

Sometimes, I take a piece of paper, try to draw
a memory on its surface—capturing hyperbolic remains,
and the lackadaisy of a flower-bed that is always
wandering,
and refuses to sit still long enough for me to see its face.
(When I was younger, I hated weed-veils in concrete porches,

and I still do.)

So I take up a paintbrush, a pencil,
garden shears, and an empty heart,
to sit staring at the glassy eyes of a window that is blessed
to worry about nothing.

(to sit staring at galactic stations heading up towards oblivion.)

5/30


unlabelled swinging aortas~

stranger,

you have my sincerest apologies
for all the times i have left my heart
strung on the wire line at your doorstep.
it must be a highly disconcerting sight
to find a desiccated four-valved lump
swinging above your head: venae-cavae
almost touching your hairline.



(i would appreciate it if you didn't
file a complaint; i am aware
that the transmission lines are reserved
for pigeons only.)

6/30

a pep-talk to the signs around you~

lines of taffetta swinging across the sky: i have lined
my window—and yours too—with patchwork clouds
(to kiss you awake every panic attack).

but that is my patchwork, and it is untrue, and have you noticed—

the sun breaks open on your horizon every day,
yolk dribbling down embroidered skylines like pre-destiny, cumulonimbus
dismembering the sun like a thousand tears caught
in a spider's web.
(dismembering sun yolks like the earthen bowls are home
to neon-blue cake mix.)

and below—the trees outside your front door
have caught fire—their foliagery flickers
with the sky as it pirrouettes a display
(of dancing peacocks and nylon-fibre ballet).



please kiss your eyes awake every panic attack.

8/30

street art

i~

dreary mornings taste like turpentine against my lips, but that is what i have been drinking, and i cannot stop—i've forgotten how to stop—for the bleariness of a new day, of a new power-thrum, of footsteps against a path that has grown weary, forever dressed in mourning colours. but the tarmac doesn't complain to being trodden upon and i decided a long time ago that neither would i.

ii~

i've discovered that there is a place in my head where i can hide and pretend i am dreaming, where i can pretend there is more to me than canvassing these streets. but you knocked the pretence out of me with your white lies and daring glances; you knocked me out of my bloody heart and i can't hide there anymore for fear you'll come back someday to haunt me. but more: there is a sea growing inside me like the universe unfolding, i call it my lochness—on good days it is despair. there is a sea unfolding inside me and sometimes i want to reach inside me and tuck in the edges, because i am afraid some day it will peek out of my skin and i will drown.

i cannot moor my boat with paintbrushes and i feel like i've lost myself in me.

iii~

my skin is coiling up like a spiralling waterfall; i have become a cyclone, stampeding park benches beneath me and staring at the moon and wishing, wishing, wishing for a world that has never been mine. i wish for an iron to smooth the creases out of this sea, but i can feel the tide growing desolate and uneven.

i've taken to apathetic drunkenness lately.

9/30

have you seen the sky crying on the sidewalk?

it is not the rain beating down on my roof tonight
that makes me wonder if the clouds ever tire of writing the same lonely song,
or if the clappers in the sky's grand organ ever decide
to just stop while the clouds are lyricking.
i never stop to wonder if the sky ever grows depressed, if its heart feels
heavy at the end of every week.



the sky has been asking me to draw parallels these days;
last I heard, it still prefers the ground
as parchment.

10/30

Yesterday, we went for a walk
twice a circuit around the park
and up the hill, to contemplate
what the meaning of Us is.

We figured it was far too hard to understand,
so we laughed and walked on
(and prayed silently, fervently, in our hearts
for Help).

('Doesn't the world seem to have stopped tonight,
in its tracks, like it is waiting
for something to happen? It's like
there is a storm heading our way,
but I think—')

'I'll be there for the downpour when it comes.'

11/30

a jar of incense from a healer's heart

i lit a flame inside a jam jar for you,
with a whiff of rosemary—the fickle flower—
and raat ki raani, which has always been
my favourite, if never yours.

but is it my fault that cestrum nocturnum isn't even
half as beautiful sounding a name?
(you have often told me that a rose by any other name
would smell just as sweet,
but your psychological inclinations
suggest otherwise.)

i am still hopeful, you know, despite all the times
you have blown the fire out of the jars i leave
by your bedstead. i am still hopeful, and naïve,
and willing to spare your half-a-heart.

but it is hard sometimes, because the flames
with their attempts at self-exile—licking at the glass walls
bear such a likeness to your insanity.



spare me your half-hearted ability to love; i know enough
to understand that no amount of fire
can heal a coiled septum once it has turned.

12/30

circa we're trying to find out

poetry asleep on your television set
like a cat like a warning sign sigh sighs buzzing
with radioactive toxins and shuddering breaths

poetry curled up against your ribs to keep you warm
when the radiator won't work refuses to
work
when the fan is greasy with tiredness and the chairs
do not wish to be sat upon

poetry like a wild animal soothing the night
to fall asleep to give way like a brick wall with demolishing needs

poetry demolishing hearts and reminding us
these are just words on a screen on paper on rock
breaking hearts and creating tremors
since human endeavours to reflect life

13/30

branching out warning signs

i was told, when everything began to landslide,
that my beginnings are abrupt, and the middles
dragging on, and that i ought not
to uproot myself so catastrophically,



it was just one of many mishaps
that bookmark stagnant evenings
when the sky is bearing down on you
like a furnace. i was told that i ought not to drink ash,
or taste rock, but how am i supposed to understand
the difference between stalactites and stalagmites
if i don't?


(a notice unfolds on the rock: tasmanian devil missing,
please contact your torn soles if found.)

14/30


Moon, don't follow me home, please,
do not track me with your gaze.
Let me hide in my closet, shuttered down,
blinds folded around me—please
let me write about love,
and war, and warm homes,
and something along those lines
(to keep me coldhearted and innocuous
another night, just another night, another—
another again).

But please, Moon, don't follow me home.