Peace Has Left Me Poem by Rakhi Nair

Peace has left me.
Abandoned, deluded, I stray
House to house, person to person
Song to song, emotion to emotion.
Nothing offers stability. Nothing stays.
Why?
Is my only question.
It haunts me to insanity
Singing with an evil smile
“You can run but you cant hide.”

They tell me don’t ask that question.
So I forbid myself.
They say it’s the genesis of my pain
The cause of world sorrow.
And so it grips me with its spell
Its evil smile, its steady inquisition.
In its clutches I struggle
Using its tentacles for crutches, I stand
Momentary. Only to fall.

It is dark. It is crowded.
It is noisy, it hurts.
Time runs at a mocking speed.
Points a finger and laughs at me.
Clown face.
Everything is a rush. Except me.
So I run too, to catch up
With time, with people
With songs, with emotions.

Stuck in a modern pandemonium
I see, I hear, people talking,
Laughing, shouting.
Glasses clinging, cell phones ringing
Guitars strumming, djembe drumming.
And there’s my mind – wailing.
At times it jeers at me, at times it motivates.
Telling me always how I am the faulted?
Telling me to mend my ways.
And I ask myself, why?
Why this agony? Why this doubt
Why is it with me?

And I am running. As fast as I can
But its not fast enough.
Everything, everyone glides by me
With tails like genies – or ghosts.
They smile at me – the same mocking smile.
Give me a hand but pass me by.
And I run, I grab, I search, I cry
But nothing stays.
And thus, peace has left me.