Shades of Red
Each month,
a chaos builds within,
a week of shedding.
Metamorphosis of the moon?
Sometimes
with the change of seasons
skins peel off themselves.
A rush accompanies,
frantically trying to part the skin
like mouthful of anxiety,
barf in a jar full of balm.
Running, smothering, fading,
a provocation to be ahead of the process,
a crippling desire to surpass reality.
A chemical reaction in a lab full of
untrained chemists.
Mixing, pouring, wiping,
spewed reactions of an alchemist.
There’s a bell,
ringing,
within.
Dizziness, pain, anguish
shoving morsels of food inside.
Bloats and blood
birth-pangs on the brink,
like two soft palms brushing
against each other.
Change is always lead
by something;
An absent father,
Excruciating pain,
in blotches and stains.
We run in circles,
Self-consumed,
getting away, always.
Don’t;
let it shed,
let it renew,
Touch the hollowness of the womb.
Look,
the rains bleed in red knots.
***
On flesh and bones carved out of bricks and stones
Bodies are cities;
fresh when born,
slowly inhabiting
with desires.
Moving but static within.
Skin is a land of woven fragments
shiny threads laid bare.
Clothed in vegetation,
naked
when looked closely. Incessant green rivers merging in red oceans.
Navel, a tiny pit of refuge
for effortless hair and
clusters of mosses.
People vacating,
leaving behind temporary deluge.
Bodies are cities;
waiting to be loved,
but with deleted histories and claustrophobia.
Inhabited by people; used, reused, thrown.
Stripped, murdered, paraded worshipped, gunned down, looted.
Cities are bodies,
“development”, centre’s jewel;
oppressor the ornament oppressed
the tool
Shining from afar,
decayed, when looked closely.
Bodies have nooks,
huts of farmers;
unfinished, hungry, colourful.
Disrupted valleys, barren fields,
a stretch of mountains shrinking with age.
Bodies are cities,
some soft like the ocean some
proud like buildings. Standing
tall basking egos, naked when
looked closely. Erected burden,
monument between legs weak
and dependent, city’s mere
dregs.
State casting shadows,
killing the sexes,
a “democratic” narrative, and
a bunch of thieves.
temples unholy, growing
mercilessly, and perishing
slowly.
***
Her
I’m her,
the one who falters and stumbles.
The larva growing on a dead,
lichen and weeds in a field,
algae on the sides of a mouth.
I’m her,
a cactus
growing parched,
sheathing and uprooting with warm dry winds.
An embryo, with a huge body;
shapeless breasts and rivery thighs.
I’m her,
a grown adult
engulfing a fetus within
failing to recover the disease of being born.
***
Motion
The fan rotates;
Whirling, speeding, hushing.
Movements in body
Slow, like a dead man’s lull
Silenced, like a snail in gutters
Calm, like a lullaby
Churn, churn, and, churn
Like milk separating butter,
Churn, like pain
ever-increasing
slowly ceasing to die.
Churn, churn, tuck!
A neighbour dragging furniture,
a cooker whistle in distance.
Water flushing down –
a dollop of my hairfall,
black whirlpool.
Food process in a boiler;
oil separating,
like people do
staying at the rim
never touching the centre –
‘things fall apart’
Churn, churn, churn.
***
Life(less) anxiety
It starts from the head,
slowly creeping in.
Shackles my toes, feet, legs
and
then my thighs.
There are knots in the abdomen,
thickness entwined no medicine can cure.
It tingles in, shakes me, holds me.
I’m a prisoner in my own body.
Noiselessly it embraces me from back,
painting my nape and killing me mildly.
My arms are tied now, fingers numb,
palms lifelessly quenching to breathe.
The nerves on my neck are soft and bruised;
pale blue and devilish green haunting my senses
infusing numbness within.
My eyes: full of life, full of waters trying to reach out incessantly with an unknown language devoid of any politics.
My lips: parched and sullen, trying to create words only to fail again.
My hair: flowing in the wind, still life in them with a lifeless texture.
My mind: fragments from the sky, ruptured desire dying and forming these branches to tangle me again.
Wounded Table (1940) and Two Nudes in a Forest (1939)
Yashasvi Gaur is a research scholar at Jadavpur University in Kolkata. She writes about simple arenas of life and how it unfolds into myriad philosophies. Her works have been featured with publishers and journals like Half Baked Beans and Inverse. Apart from this, she has also performed and recited at various seminars.[/wrapper]
