Solitude Poem by Vinaya Joseph

I was alone,
But then I wasn't,
Completely on my own,
As I had my thoughts,
Thoughts about others,
Demons in my head,
Dancing like the Theyyam,
The sheer madness of the ritual,
That I just witnessed,
To give company

My mind was turbulent as ever,
The blues in my head,
Life was not black and white,
As the gown that I was about to adorn,
It had its shades of grey...

I was going to be a lawyer,
So many hurdles to clear,
I had to learn Malayalam,
I had to clear the backlogs,
The end of a distant relation,
With a person whom I never met

I was nursing a broken me,
Yet I was open,
Open to all sorts of conjectures,
Ready to defend truth,
To become a voice for the voiceless,
My pain was not in vain,
It gave me the courage to fight back,
At any cost,
I had made up my mind,
To become a custodian of justice,
Help those in need,
And protect the interest of the weak,

Some days my eyes welled,
I could feel my breath,
The heaviness of my heart,
I could see the journey,
I had undertaken so far,
The wrong choices that I made,
Persons who deserted me,
Pained me immensely,
How gullible I became to their vices...

In front of me,
I could see the setting sun,
The sparkling waters,
Birds in flight,
The ‘V' formations in the sky,
From where I sat,
A bench at Subhash Park,
The orange hues of the changing sky,
I was alone,
No one besides me,
Just me and my thoughts,
The two of us on a bench at the park…

Some days,
Lonesomeness is awesomeness…
Its freedom,
Of being on your own
Freedom to be with the Lord,
To converse with him
And find the me in me...

That little time,
I am with myself,
The time I reflect on my life,
On my mistakes,
And I seek forgiveness,
From my Lord…