Poetry: A Tendency to Wear Hearts on Sleeves

(Image Source)

I log into the network of my self-esteem,

To see the hearts and the wows and the laughs flooding in.

A simple 'like' wouldn’t cut it anymore

‘Likes’ were so 2010, even 2010 was bored. 

‘Cause that’s the zeitgeist of the age, you see,

A tendency to wear hearts on sleeves.

Loves and kisses are a dime a dozen,

With a million friends and followers double.

National debates and social justice petitions,

Real crises, distorted renditions.

High definition photos of disaster zones

Flash up against cat videos on every smart phone.

Snapchat filters do not lie,

Just tell a story of hours gone by;

Selecting the perfect background, the ideal shade

To express love on the dozen’th date. 

But that’s the zeitgeist of the century,

A tendency to wear hearts on sleeves.

To document in minute detail, with extensive pictorial evidence

Clockwork days of humdrum nonchalance. 

And perhaps the generation that came before

Would call it vanity, vainglory, or something more.

But it ain’t like they were without their sins,

We didn’t invent tabloid columnists. 

And now that we are at the end,

Let me sign off with this request:

Like, comment, and share your love

Let your heart fall out of your shirt cuff.

Poetry: You Cannot Buy Groceries with Potential

(Image Source)

They’ll tell you that you have ‘potential’,

That with the proper degrees and the right resume

You could get it all, make every dream real,

Go up on the stage of life and have your say.

But they’ll only ever whisper in parenthesis,

That this fairy tale had its genesis

In the blackened ashtrays of airless office rooms

Broken bodies lost in the factory fumes.

They’ll say you can be anything you want,

Just so long as your plans don’t interrupt

The 9-hour shift and 3-hour commute

Plus any housekeeping that you can contribute.

They don’t call it a hustle ‘cause it’s easy,

Life ain’t supposed to be breezy

You pay your dues and you bear your cross

And if all else fails, just please the boss.

They’ll say it’s not sleep deprivation,

If at the end of the year you land that promotion.

Creativity is a small price to pay

For petrol, a roof, and a biennial raise.

Cost of living adjustments and dearness allowances

A trade-off for the rose-tinged contact lenses

Of limitless potential and classroom lectures

Beige colored dreams and dead-end conjectures.

It wouldn’t be a ‘job’ if you liked it,

And the rent still needs to be paid.

Power and Wi-Fi aren’t bought with ‘potential’, baby

For those, you need a higher pay grade.

Poetry: Aro/Ace - On the Slightly Awkward Subject of My UnSexuality

Closet? What closet? I'm coming out of an antique mahogany almirah decorated with rainbow butterflies. 

Aro/Ace –

Sounds like the kinda thing you’d say on Tumblr.

Or would have, when you were fifteen,

If you were into that sort of thing.

I wasn’t, personally. I was too busy–

Trying to make friends (with dubious success)

Get passing grades (a huge fucking mess)

And simply exist (without knowing it) as an aro/ace.

What’s that? I couldn’t have told you.

Not then, when it was all confusing and new.

I barely understand it now, and I’m just a year short

Of a quarter of a century to the day I was born.

Well, I guess it’s a distinct lack of butterflies,

In your intestines, where their natural turf supposedly lies.

I s’pose it’s also a few awkward dates, a few epic fails

But that, in my life, is just a reasonably good day.

You prude. So rude. What the fuck, dude?

That was a perfectly good platitude

Of romantic intent, if a bit commonplace

But who said teenage love was about originality anyway?

A shrug. Coffee mug. I’m not against clichés.

I’ll drink it black and wallow in my own uniqueness.

I’m a strong, independent rebel who doesn’t need no man,

Unless he can play guitar, then he’s part of the gang.

‘Tis a bit of a strange identity

To be not who I am, but what I mustn’t be.

The unoppressed minority,

Or just a pretentious wannabe?

And sometimes, it’s just confusing as hell,

Did I break the fucking Kinsey scale?

Truth is, I’m all of the above

Though to get there was a bit of a learning curve.

But hell, I’m a year short of twenty-five,

Too old for this angsty Tumblr jive.

So there, I said it, I’m aro/ace,

And with that I conclude this awkward exposé. 

The Poetry Post #5

Crispy Fried Chicken

A thunderstorm beating against my ribs,
The sun glares into my eyes and screams –
Wordless terror; as claws, a monster’s dibs
Snatch her from the coop. ‘Take me!’ I weep.
‘Tsk tsk – too old. It’s a party!
I’ll need tender meat.’

Stench of sweat, rotting flesh
Or minds, festering in metallic confines,
Crumbling feathers, dying babes
Snatched by demon hands from damnation’s cage.
Wings torn, breast ripped – she was mine!
‘Crispy wings, stuffed breast’, they wink and smile.

Crimson hands feed crimson eyes
From the dinner plate of corpses;
Beat my wings, scratch my feet
As he too is torn and twisted.
That makes two; two gone four to go
Of the little ones I tended.

Their crimson blood must’ve reached the skies,
For it’s bathed in burning red;
The demon’s hand darts in again
Into our cursed little shed.
A wordless cry, twist, rip; the bloody flaps of dying wings
Into the butcher’s knife, I fly; one final remonstrance.

A Shrine to Pointless Things

In my corner of the flat, I’ll build
A shrine to pointless things;
To broken pens and chequered notes,
Old stamps forgotten in the bins.
To rusty screws, empty batteries,
A shrine to battered memories
Of lives lived as in a dream.

Oh let me but a corner, to build my empty shrine,
To a broken bangle, martyred in her prime –
Not to love, nor war: but the pointless drudgeries of life.
We fight for no grand causes; we build for no great men,
Our highest aspirations – food, shelter and a peg;
Our shrines all shorn of glory,
To discarded dreams, a testament.

So in my corner of the flat, I’ll build
A shrine to trivial things;
To plastic flowers, dog-eared journals
A homage to mundanity.
The world glories in grand things –
Great passions of love and war;
My words, hence, are for all trivial things
By obscure smiles and tears marked.

Poetry: The Misguided Romanticization of Everyday Misfortunes

Collided with you on my way to work,

No, it wasn’t a sign, wasn’t destiny’s quirk.

A swollen temple and a bruised nose

Do not herald a date, a wedding, or even a rose.

Dropped my books on my way to class,

Our fingers brushed when you knelt on the grass

Music blasting from the dorm on the second floor

I nodded my thanks and walked through the door.

I know they say it’s divine intervention,

But it’s more just my lack of hand-eye coordination.

I know you believe we were meant to be

But I need spectacles more than a relationship.

Now my scarf’s stuck to your wrist watch,

My hem’s ripped, your buckle’s botched.

I knew I shouldn’t have bought the lace

Oh shit! Did you think this was decreed by fate?

Spilled my coffee on your shirt front

Damn! Was it Ralph Lauren? Peter England?

Here’s a coupon for a dry-cleaning discount

Just tell me you don’t think this counts.

Look, I’m not saying you’re reading too much into this,

Though that might be an accurate analysis.

All I’m saying is our future looks accident prone

So maybe invest in an insurance plan before a wedding loan.

Poetry: A Letter to My Best Friend

Well, there isn't much to say about this one. It's right what it says on the tin. An elaborate proposition for potential cohabitation to my best friend. Featuring five years worth of inside jokes that you may or may not get. 

It isn’t that I never lied

Never spouted facts and figures unverified

To impress you, proselytize you

Opinions too many, confessions too few.

It isn’t that you never cried

Hurled accusations, indictments unjustified

To convert me, evangelize me

Passions so many, compromise an enemy.

But then, we’ve never needed perfection

Kicking and screaming, we agreed to contradictions

Mindmates on a play date

Soulmates are so mid-2000s anyway.

It isn’t just that I want to play house

Without a ken doll, outside a wedding hall

It isn’t that you shouldn’t drink, sing and carouse

Until the vodka spills and the cocktails run out

But I must say, it would be okay

To have a dog or three, and walk ‘em every other day

It wouldn’t be half bad, to have a semi-clean flat

With a sparkling bath and an angry stray cat

It isn’t that the future’s certain, or the past unblemished

It isn’t that I trust you not to leave this fanfic unfinished

But the climax is a spoiler, and completion is overrated anyway

I’d take it as a victory, if all we ever had was today. 

Poetry: An Ode to Durga

So, I had to write a poem for the annual Dussehra (Durga Puja) magazine published at my residential complex every year. Well, I sat down at my laptop for this year's installment, and this is what came out. Enjoy!!

They told us that you’re handsome, that you’re strong

They told us you felled demons, righted ancient wrongs

We were led to believe, we didn’t need a fallen Eve

When we had you – rising, flying, fighting, and free.

You’re feminism in a saree

Rebellion ornamented with filigree

Not the deity we deserve, perhaps

But the Goddess we need.

They told us you’re Kali, who dared to be

Dark when pale was in vogue

They told us you’re Saraswati, who by all accounts,

Was pretty, but preferred paperbacks to the dance floor.

But of course, Lakshmi too is a part of you

She liked being rich, and was gorgeous to boot.

You’re diversity in a bindi, a neglected inheritance

Independence that doesn’t select for an English accent

Ironic, I admit. Guilty as charged.

Using foreign syllables to sing of my own backyard.

You were the original heroine, before Supergirl came along

We thought we could do it too, if you’ve been at it for so long.

You’re the one with the third eye

And in hindsight, I realize

We had you all along – defeating our demons, fighting our fights

Even as we looked to Disney and DC to bring order to our messy lives

Provide us with repackaged role models

Hanging by their tattered capes, from capitalist citadels.

Now wake up, take charge

Come home and show them who’s the star

Of this silly little primetime show called life

The fighter, the scholar, the fashionista, and the wife

You’re the role model we need,

Though perhaps not the God we currently believe

They said you’re strong, righted all the wrongs

Come home then, and teach us again, how to march along to your victory song.

Poetry: To the Faceless Co-Passenger on a Crowded Public Bus

I can't believe I wrote an actual poem about my epic (and well documented) awkwardness on public transportation. Well, here it is. Don't ask me what you did to deserve it. Commuting to work is hard, okay!! 

Dust motes and sweat stains

Faded graffiti over rusted steel plates

Advertising everything, from politicians to a massage parlor,

The engine roars disgruntled, in smoky rancor.

I stepped on your feet, said I was sorry

Tell me mister, could you tell I was lying?

Pushing through the rush-hour crowd

I finally found my footing and was proud.

Well, there’s something to be said for low expectations

A word of praise for cranky co-passengers

Not that the polite ones aren’t fun

When they smile and roll their eyes like they’re so done.

And it’s not that I’d ever expect sincerity,

At 10 on a rainy Tuesday morning

I’m not a nihilist, or even much of a cynic by default

 But at 10am, I take nice with a bucket of salt.

I put on my headphones, crank the volume up to max,

Sway to the shrill screeching of pirated tracks

I’m sorry, did you say something? I can’t really tell.

It’s not you’re uninteresting, it’s just that this song is swell.

And maybe I could’ve made more of an effort

Gotten to know your name, exchanged toffees and emotional support

Maybe you’d have told me your story, if my ears were free

Maybe we could’ve found something worth a keep.

But you see, mister, it’s not you it’s me

At 10 on a Tuesday morning, I’m not the best company.

I hope, tomorrow, you’ll find a co-passenger worth your time,

As for me, facelessness suits me just fine.

The Poetry Post #4

Festivity

The festive season has begun
Time for fireworks, feasts and fun;
Relatives and friends come calling home,
Lights and colours, the walls adorn.

Florid wallpapers, the widening cracks disguise,
Dendrite mends the leaking pipes.

Prismatic lamps illumine dreary halls,
Ornate dresses and cashmere shawls;
And if the ripped petticoat within, be seen,
‘The delicate fabric caught the jewelled pin’.

Silver ornaments painted gold,
Bought last month, when the bed was sold.

Treats and sweets, the dinner table overwhelm,
Enticing flavours inhaled with every breath;
Delicacies compete to catch the eye,
Where nothing had been but bread and rye.

Euphoric laughter heralds despairing cries,
Festive splendour, broken homes disguise.

Fatal Addiction

Virtual worlds of perfect lives,
Pouting lips and charcoal eyes,
Photos ‘shared’ and status ‘liked’
He says ‘what’s up’, she says ‘hi’.

Unnoticed, ignored, a wisp of smoke,
Blows in through cracks in the bolted door
Meanwhile, in the background, the first sparks fly,
The woodwork singes, the curtains ignite.

And yet, within the world of dreams,
When happiness is uploaded, all troubles flee;
Smiles and tears, technicolour faces convey,
And charming strangers whisk all troubles away.

Outside the windows, sirens blare,
Cries reverberate, all in a scare;
The sunset hues of lives ablaze,
Tear through the walls, all barriers raze.

All else fades out, when the chat-box beeps,
Dark fumes all round, it’s too late to scream;
With the last breath snuffed out, and vision dimmed,
‘I luv u too’ blinks on the dying screen...

The Confessions of a Recovering People-Pleaser

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I seem to only hit the keyboard when I’m in the middle of some life-altering personal epiphany these days. Oh well, my productivity issues aren’t news to anyone at this point. Note to self: be productive and write a blog post about your chronic lack of productivity sometime in the near future. But I’m here to talk about a different issue today. Namely, people-pleasing.

Now, I should preface this by saying that I’ve never really considered myself much of a people-pleaser. I know. Seems to be a running theme in my life, doesn’t it? Guess you could say I never really knew who I truly was. There’s a depressing thought for you. But anyway, I came to the conclusion, relatively recently, that I was, in fact, a compulsive people-pleaser.

The Symptoms of Chronic People-Pleasing

Now, you might wonder how I had never figured that out before. Seems like the kind of thing you’d notice somewhere along the first twenty odd years of your life, doesn’t it? But hear me out. I do have an excuse. You see, I’ve always been a pronounced introvert, and reasonably logical and level-headed about most things in life. I never really went out of my way to be around people. Hell, most times I was going out of my way to avoid being around people, though I always have had a few close friends I enjoy hanging out with. Besides that, I am a reasonably independent and self-driven individual. Never paid much attention to what other people thought I should do with my life. Considering all this, it never did occur to me that a good many of the decisions that I have made so far were driven by an insidious need to please and pacify those around me.

You see, my people-pleasing is as fickle and fleeting as it is chronic and compulsive. Which is to say, I seem to have an innate desire to make the person who is right in front of me at any given moment happy and comfortable. But that desire doesn’t much outlast the person’s presence in my vicinity. In other words, my desire to please you goes away as soon as you do. Out of sight, out of mind, like they say. Makes me sound like a right bitch, doesn’t it? Well, that’s what confessions are for, when done right.

So the upshot of all this was that I would tie myself into knots trying to be nice to random co-passengers on bus journeys, clerks at the local department store and so forth. And that would not have been a problem in itself had it not been accompanied by a feeling of profound discomfort and inadequacy whenever I felt like I had said something wrong or done something to annoy the person concerned. This was especially bad at large parties or gatherings, where it just felt like I was spending all my time jumping through random hoops trying to cater to a bunch of people who all wanted different things from me. Not a surprise then, that I have always found parties to be utterly exhausting.

Unconscious Drives and Conscious Decisions

It’s important to say here, though, that none of this was really a conscious thing for me. None of these thoughts were either as lucid or as clear as they probably appear to be when written out like this. It’s not that I was consciously trying to make people like me as an end in itself. It was nothing as simple or manageable as that. I suppose the closest I can come to describing it is like…an itch under my skin when I felt I had said something that the person in front of me disapproved of or was uncomfortable with. I really spent an inordinate amount of time and energy trying to predict other people’s thoughts and opinions so as not to say something or act in a way that might offend them.

It’s really amazing when I think about it now, how many of the decisions I made and the weird shit I did as a teen – and I suppose as an early tween, if that’s even a word – were due to this insidious need to be liked by everyone all the time. More than anything else, it was an exhausting and stressful way to live.

I cannot find the words to describe exactly how draining social gatherings and interactions were for me for almost as long as I can remember. They still are, to some extent, though thankfully not to the same degree since I’ve gained some self-awareness about what I am feeling and why. It also made me terribly self-conscious, which further fueled my awkwardness and reluctance to go out in public any more than necessary. Quite the vicious circle, huh.

The Upside of Obsessive People-Pleasing

I believe in giving credit where it is due, even when it is due to an obsessive, life-destroying, and highly embarrassing need to be liked by random strangers. There was, indeed, an upside to this whole business. The one good thing that came out of constantly trying to figure out what would make the person in front of me happy was that I eventually became quite good at reading people. I can usually tell with remarkable accuracy, within a few minutes of being in someone’s presence, what mood they’re currently in.

Likewise, I can usually tell what a person’s general opinions are and what topics they’re interested in after just a few minutes of knowing them. Constantly trying to figure out exactly how to make someone happy actually resulted in me getting really good at doing just that. Of course, this does not work with everybody, nor are my predictions a hundred percent accurate all the time. But I did get good enough at reading people that many a time, when meeting someone new, I would chalk out the course of our conversation and their role in it almost exactly to one of my friends, before that conversation had even started.

Being that hyper aware of people’s moods and desires only worsened the problem, since I was essentially catering to desires and emotions that the person concerned didn’t even know they had. Strange, isn’t it, that you can be that acutely aware of somebody else’s motivations and so utterly unaware of your own! For me, it seems that’s exactly how it was for the longest time. The good part is, that being a (hopefully) more mature and self-aware critter now than I was last year, I can use these dope psychoanalytic abilities for something more productive than being overly obliging at parties.

Stupid Shit I Did that I Wish I Hadn’t

I remember one time in college I was doing a content writing internship for some extra pocket money. Wasn’t really a serious thing, but it paid well so I asked a couple of my friends if they wanted to join. They did, and for the first few months it was all cool and exciting. The job itself was fun as we could write on almost any topic that caught our fancy. From flash fiction to news reports, everything was acceptable so long as you told a good story.

Then, a few months down the line, our boss told us he wanted to hold regular skype meetings. We joined in on the first few, but they tended to drag on forever and nothing really happened that couldn’t be said in a single text message. So after a while we really just wanted out. But I couldn’t bring myself to say this to my now former boss. To this day, I cannot figure out why. It’s not that I was afraid of losing my job. It was just an internship and I could have found another one like it if I’d bothered looking. Besides, my boss was a pretty understanding guy and I knew, even then, that I didn’t really have to worry about any negative consequences if I just made up some excuse and stopped attending the meetings, which were pretty pointless and meandering anyway.

But I dreaded actually having that conversation with my boss and couldn’t bring myself to do it for the longest time, putting myself through many more hours of static-laden boredom than was necessary. I even fought with one of my friends, who refused to put up with my bullshit and told our boss that she won’t be attending the meetings because of family problems she didn’t really have (she had the family, not the problems). I didn’t want to be alone at those godforsaken meetings that I couldn’t bring myself to ditch, for fear of offending a boss who in all probability wouldn’t have given a shit. Quite the cluster-fuck I’d gotten myself into, as you can see.

Now that I think about it, I can clearly remember several similar incidents where I would be angry with my mother (who does have a tendency to be rather blunt), because she had said something to one of my friends that I considered to be rude. And you know what? Maybe it was actually rude, or maybe it wasn’t. Everybody’s threshold is different, after all. But the point is, it never even occurred to me to check with my friend if she was offended by what was said. I just assumed she was and that she wouldn’t like me anymore, which caused me to lash out at my mother for what was essentially just a difference in communication style.

I even allowed myself to be stalked and harassed for six painful months by an obsessive classmate in college, because I couldn’t bring myself to say what needed to be said and tell her to fuck the hell off. It all ended with me losing my shit and having an epic outburst after months of being followed around everywhere and having my privacy invaded. And the funny thing is, not only did I screw up my own life through this ridiculous conflict avoidance, I ultimately ended up offending that classmate far more than I would have if I’d simply told her to fuck off in the first place.

How to Proceed?

And if you think that, now that I have consciously realized all of this, my struggles with people pleasing are over? Oh my sweet summer child, you are in for such a reality-check. Just as I was. You see, after all these years of subconscious practice, wanting to please the person right in front of me is as instinctive to me as breathing. The more I think about it, the more I realize that it has become an essential part of my basic communication style. Being a people-pleaser is essentially how I present myself to the world, and it is not possible to change something that deeply ingrained overnight.

I am still hyper-aware of the moods and emotions of the people around me, and I still often catch myself tailoring my conversation style to what I think will best please the person I am talking to. I am still more than a little uncomfortable deliberately telling people something that I know will annoy or offend them. I still feel that little niggling in the pit of my stomach when I plug in my earphones instead of continuing an awkward and stilted conversation with the person sitting next to me on the bus, like I owe them my time and attention more than I owe it to myself to get some much-needed relaxation after work.

So, I guess you could say that I still have a long way to go before I can finally rip that people-pleasing label off my character-chart for good. Yes, I now apparently have a character-chart. Could this post get more pathetic? But here’s the good part. Knowing what I do now, I can consciously make myself have the confrontations that I would have instinctively avoided in the past. I can force myself to be straight with people when I need to, even though I know they don’t want to hear what I have to say. And I can make myself spend every bus journey with Taylor Swift blasting into my ears until I stop feeling like a horrible human being for not listening to my co-passenger’s rant about her mother-in-law’s intricate housekeeping rules. These are things that I can do. And if sometimes I don’t feel like doing them? Well, a little schmoozing every now and then never hurt anyone, did it?