Bias. I pen down my innermost thoughts, my scars,
my dark fears and I call it poetry. I talk about how
my mother's mouth holds struggle, and how my
father's grave does not exhume flowers. I write
how adulthood strains me, drains me. Just because
all the poets around me write about darkness.
Drafts. My inscriptions stay in my notepads for
months, like a well with water unsafe for the
community. How do I reach depths when my own
depths feel inadequate? How do I document
my dream of silhouettes reeling out of the tongue
of my dead father, when my first drafts would
always remain in my notepad, like my father's
corpse in its grave?
Expectations. My gees want to see me published.
again. in litmags that do not compensate me for my
grief. For readerships that could not end my
obsession with oblivion. They want to see me on
web pubs, hail my efforts in creating a digital
footprint, while I am still unsure that
the prints that follow me are my own.
how do I share pain, in a
place where pain is so commonplace?
how do I micromanage burdens,
when pressure is all I run away from?
Rejections. You have not seen my inbox. Of how
editors do not seem to understand why my pain
should be laid bare on their portals, of how my grief
is unworthy of its readership. My inbox is a cataclysm
of failed drafts, hefty regrets, and misused
parameters. my mentors relay tidings - news
cloaked in the reels of inspiration - on the
hierarchies of pain, of how my inbox is a testament
to resilience and growth. Who cares about editorial
standards, when all I do is find words to put my
grief on paper?
who says that there is a vocabulary
for the pain I suffer?
Theft. My poem goes live on a platform that does not
pay for my work. and I am supposed to be grateful
that I do not monetize my grief. Ceteris Paribus.
Secret. I see my work on a page that screams the
clutters of haunted engagement. redoubled.
relabeled. remixed. and I am to stay quiet because
maybe noise would heighten the voices in my head.
Loot. loot away, but not at my depths. I might
not have protection. but, my demons might avenge
...me?
