Pradeep Dhavakumar (August 27th,1979 / India)

Looking at you, I remember the first time we met:
sometime in my first grade, when the page-thirsty
line was running wild with its black army, trying to
capture every length and breadth of the white land
and I sat like a sparrow watching a tiger rampage;
while you bravely jumped out of the teacher's mouth,
onto my senses and with a single dot stopped its march.

From then till now, I remember all the times you had
stepped forward in the many pages of my life, stopping
every line according to the day’s need, setting priorities,
creating order and maintaining a balance of present and past,
and most of all I remember how perfect you were in your lynch:
never allowing a single phoenix to rise and how unshakable
you always remained after the kill: never oscillating to the past.

But why, when I scatter you onto the pages of my heart
where I need you the most, to kill those unanswerable
question marks that multiply like cancer and severe my days,
you become a heavy cannon ball and painfully roll and roll?
Or sublimate all your potent flesh and become a deep hole?
Or become the cars of a parking lot that empty at dark?
Or grow a sharp sickle and become another question mark?