Short poems

Ode to my anxiety

There’s something small that lives inside a hollow tree.

It might be small but I’m not sure it’d be friends with me.

So I soldier on in hopes that the creature might one day be...

A tiny voice, not frightening or menacing, that's just a little less scary.


Left on read

I find myself waiting by the phone

Every minute of every day I feel alone.

The loneliness it grips me like the cold, raspy hands of death.

So many times I've tried to be; something other than me

Just to please you so you wouldn't leave.

Now every time I wait by the phone...

I glance into the mirror so I won't feel alone. 

But what I see is not me.

The me that I see is begging to break free.


First published on @Bombay_Bards on Instagram.

Almost Alice

The world's unrelenting words have hardened the soft palate.

Inured to violations, the eyes have lost their sparkle.

The blood running through the coarse hands has thickened.

Suddenly, life feels different.

They say she is more powerful, assertive and courageous.

But she didn't ask to be labelled 'outrageous'.

The lonely path that has been bestowed by fate...

Is often met with such incessant hate.

Some of us just want to be living...

The same clichéd life that everyone's been given.

That's not a privilege for many to unravel.

Some of us are born to trudge the road less travelled.


First published on @Bombay_Bards on Instagram.

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