The Honest Hypocrite & The Bag With All The Food Poem by Avikshit Pratap

(“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
- Ernest Hemingway)



There is a strange calmness in the dark,
I don't feel peace.
I feel nothing.
Groping for a path in this eerie nothingness,
I reach out,
Tumble all over and rise again.
Actually, I was just staying still,
I said it all to appear a stronger person.


Ahead there is light,
I don’t want to go there.
I have become accustomed of the dark,
Doing nothing, just staying still,
Like dead bodies, less dead.
Life is very taxing,
You have to walk around to get somewhere,
And, I was a careless person,
I couldn't walk a yard without falling.
So, I have a lot of cuts and stitches on me.
Did you know, I have fought a lion and came out alive?


In oblivion, there is serenity.
That and the fact that I am a lazy person,
Keep me in the cave.
“But, you can’t spend your life in a cave? ”
The rational-me argues.
“Well cave is a part of this earth with free oxygen,
And I have got a bag with all the food.”
That’s how you convince rationales.
You say intelligent stuff that mustn't make sense.
The rational me now wants a slice of pizza. (Huh)

The only inconvenience I have is that,
I can’t read “The fountainhead”
(I really love this book,
but I haven’t read it till now.)
So, now I want light to read the book.
No, I don’t want light around me,
But I want light to read.
I may have fought a lion,
But, I am afraid of the bats,
Are there any?
Yes, even we hypocrites are afraid.


There are no bats, but a group of fireflies.
Fire flies?
I remember being called one,
and calling someone.
Memories of home compel me to go out.
“Atta boy. It’s tranquil here.”
The rational-me tries to convince.
The rational me really likes pizza.
“You won’t have to give an exam,
you won’t have to worry about ambitions,
No society, no responsibility, no work.
Here it will be me and you,
Just two honest hypocrites.
Outside there is a world of them,
And they are not even honest.”
I think accusing people of hypocrisy is hypocrisy itself.
Ah well.
The argument sticks with me.
In fact, I’m just too lazy to move.


But, arguments can’t stop memories,
I remember faces a midst the dark,
I remember my promise,
Of becoming a comet for everyone I love,
Just to make them smile when it’s dark,
Maybe that was just me being pretentious.
But, isn't a promise a promise?
The wounds which I show off like tattoos,
Promise to bleed if I move out,
Because, they are wounds,
and, everybody loves the possibility of not having to move again.

But, I seem to have overestimated my hypocrisy.
I don’t know how,
But that seems to be the case.


People who aren't even there,
Push me to move out.
Their smiles are the master,
And I am the genie,
I have got no choice but to say,
“Your wish is my command.”
My personal big bag of ambitions,
is also screaming at me,
Inside of it, are my passions and dreams.
They say “We hate being the calling of a hypocrite,
But in the end, we are your calling.
And, If we don’t get real,
We will be fine.
You, on the other hand...


So, in the end, despite not liking it,
I have to move out.
I have got calls to answer,
I have got wishes to fulfill,
I have got to go back in the murky world,
And work till I sweat, even if I’m lazy.
Love sure makes you do terrible things.
People make you go through terrible times.
Mark my words; they’ll make you try when you want to give up.

The wounds, true to their promise,
Start to bleed,
But I smile when I bleed
and, I feel stronger,
despite my wounds or maybe because of them.
Or may be, I am just pretending to be stronger,
But it feels the same.

The wounds are happy for me,
and they bleed even harder.
Because sadly, that’s the only thing wounds can do.