A hundred poems have I written on emptiness,
there’s one on the back of my old math notebook
one on the birthday card I made for mum
one on the red wall of my terrace –
it’s a one line poem – “WHY DOES IT NOT END?”,
there are many poems floating on the shimmer
of water in the off-white bucket in my bathroom,
there are several in my laptop – incomplete,
several half eaten in my stomach,
half chewed in my mouth
half read hanging on my eyelids
and half sung, sticking on the tip of my tongue.
People are continuities, people are patterns,
they continue each day something of their yesterday,
I am half dismal and half glory, with life one day long.
I have endurance of a woman who’s gaining weight faster than she’s gaining courage to be a shameless “cheese lover” and a constant “gym hater”,
I have patience of a kid who has no idea why did they teach him how plants breathe and not “HOW TO TEACH YOUR MOTHERS THE ART OF BREATHING FOR THEMSELVES”,
I have love of an artist who cannot decide if having a muse is another form of tranquility or hysteria.
The impermanence of how I feel changes colours
faster than a chameleon, from sunlight to midnight,
I am twenty million people; my days end with a text from an old friend that says “I know you so well”
and a text from my psychiatrist that says “YOU KNEW YOURSELF BETTER TWO YEARS BACK”.
This is how my newborn emptiness looks like,
about which I’ve never written a poem but only broken
jingles that sounded worst than nursery rhymes.
My new emptiness is called, MAKESHIFT SOUL,
I sleep with a fear of “who would I be tomorrow?”
My mornings begin with a note – “you can do this!”
my nights end with – “would i try it again tomorrow?”
The worst thing about emptiness is you don’t know –
you don’t know at what point does your ship finally sink,
your bones are half water, half blood but your flesh
wants neither of the two.
Despite what your heart wants to feel,
emptiness is merciless, it continues throughout the day
to splash both water and blood right on your face,
leaving you naked and drenched in an unknown guilt,
an unknown fear, an unknown face –
in the middle of the night, EMPTINESS LEAVES YOU UNKNOWN AND BEREFT OF DESIRE.
As the colour of my skin changes by the night,
my feet more cold and painful, my hands warmer than I want them to be, my spirit descends to an unknown field.
Of such fields, there’s no address, only yearnings.
Like mother earth, I too am a life,
there are things about me that do not change,
I am tired of making them survive, because emptiness –
emptiness does not tell where does it hurt
emptiness does not tell what does it want
emptiness does not tell of whom does it long
emptiness does not become home or a grave
emptiness stays like a parasite, it eats,
IT EATS LIKE YOU’RE INFINITE
AND YOU HATE INFINITY
FOR THE FIRST TIME IN YOUR LIFE.
~P
Prachi Bhardwaj 