Veena Shankar Kunnath

Those words that you casually throw to the winds,
Words pronounced with the fluidity of a flying bird at ease;
Those words - oh those words- to me, are like diamonds;
They need to be polished, worked on, practiced, repeated-
...

Dear God,
I write to you from a forgotten corner on earth- my house is erect, my neighbours are alive.

None of the rapes in my locality have made it to the news hour debates in a while.
...

I see you standing at the horizon, tantalisingly close; yet far away,

Do you yearn for me as I do for you, to give me a hand on my final day?
...

This is a poem about a group of adults-
an under appreciated bunch;

For whom a perfect date is never with a person,
...

The teacher to a disciplined sage,
The best friend to every recluse,
The cocoon surrounding the womb divine,
An enchantress waiting to seduce.
...

We bring our model ships to sea,
Made from nights and days of dirty work,
eyes ablaze with visions of sails brave,
Not entirely sure if in reality, it is of any worth.
...

Hush, dear mind; this is not helping,
You've chained me without chains, this spell is paralyzing.
We are well past the days when goodness was presumed,
You may stop picking at those scabs now, rubbing salt to my wounds.
...

The divine invention of the human mind,
The element purest perceived by mortal kind,
Tamed to man's liking- flickering at the tip of an oiled wick,
to a spot of light reduced- at a smokers finger tip.
...

The battle shield, the thick shell, the brick walls- we've heard it all;
The armour we wear to glue us tight when into pieces we might just fall.
You've seen that face when you steal a glance at your closest friend,
When a random man carelessly tugs at a string she is yet to mend.
...