Antisocial Diaries /2/ Poem by Abhisek Bandopadhyay

It hasn't
been too long
since a time I lived
out of hiding... yet
now witness all wit
slipping surely
and slowly beyond
the reach of my expression, when
I find that I can't be honest, which
stems from an abiding threat
of dire repercussion, were I
to freely speak the mind. This
world, to a great extent, is
built on bloated egocentricities
that hunger most
for further aggrandizement; and
for a life of liability
and quite limited means, it becomes
a stage
where malcontent
must! be sterilized
by constant inward rehearsals, until
the paranoid self
may deem it safe for permitted discourse.
But it isn't quick, is
never easy and rarely works out
the way one imagines, and more often
I find it too late
to come back with a
*socially acceptable* retort, as
the violence of my aborted voice
is smothered beneath an agonized reticence.