I Carry A Lantern Poem by Pallavi Tripathi

In dingy fog of life
Trying to carry a
Lantern to make
Sense of things.

What was yesterday's
Stupidity is today's
Experience of wrinkle
On my skin

Ever so often
Peeping from
Everyday routine
I look into my
Life from a distance
With wisdom glasses on
Only to realize
There's no such a
Thing called mistake
Just missteps that
Delays our reach

We are all on a train
Going to destination death
Eventually we're
All going there
With each passing moment
We're closer
But there are other
Destination stations
That we like to reach
Before we reach the
Finale of our lives

We carry our baggage
To keep us on track
We all have desires
To fuel us to speed
There are reflections
Of other people's
Lives in our own
And our own in others

Sometimes I just
See myself rot
Inside without
Getting any wiser
And other days
It's as if I found
An intelligent life
I stay, years
Pass before my eyes
Because I got to know
About aspects of
Me that I had
Blinded myself
From watching
But an incidence
Revealed it and
I can't unsee it nomore

I can make use
Of strategies people
Much much before
Me to go on in life
To stay cohesive
And not drown in
Multiverse of madness

We're here
As a predictable
Pieces from past
And what the prophets
From past saw it as
Nightmare, is only
Our present, we're
Unphased by the horror
Of it all and yet the body
Is sometimes
Unable to contain
The present in its form
It betrays my being
I take the lantern
And carry on with
My activities, pouring
Ink on paper.