All The Hurt

Shalini Nayar

The fishes are dying, one by one,

Cursed and mauled by a bigger, angrier fish.

It is nice to see some unevenness

Even in an ecosystem of an aquarium.

Once a sage of a writer asked

“Do your eyes light up

When your children enter the room?”

I am yet to see that light in your eyes, mother.

All you have for me are questions.

Questioning the same questions again and again

As if you don’t trust the right answer.

What is it? I don’t speak clearly enough for you?

I must be overly immersed

With my intellectual ability that

I have somehow abandoned the

Basics of speaking clearly.

You are the one at fault now, mother.

My world now crumbles under my feet

And slides away like a distant universe.

I am ashamed by all this. Care to rectify it, mother?

26 March 2003

Care To Be Free

Shalini Nayar

There are only 2 things that matter

Enough for you to question them:

My studies and my weight.

Doesn’t it occur to you that I’m much more than that?

You say my poems are intense

And difficult, and hardly ever makes sense.

I think by now I realize how futile

Your comment are because I still make

My poems difficult to read.

It is sad that it takes a tragedy for me

To proliferate creative art, like poetry.

I hardly have any more ideas to elaborate.

Tell me, is it entirely a sin that

I love myself better than you?

I know it’s wrong

So what should I do?

26 March 2003