Tisha Ganguly
hello, are you there
Can I ever feel lonely, well you are always there.
In the middle of chaos, you still bring me to peace.
Me and my thoughts, how can we ever be lonely.
Nothingness
Long-suppressed,
surged to the surface with the belligerence of a warrior,
escaping the iron-walled confines
of the meticulously devised guise
that I had seen her coerce onto her features.
I saw the way that it arduously entangled itself with every word she pieced together,
with every thought she conjectured into reality,
and with every feeling that coursed through her;
It became her —
even though she knew, and I knew, and I suppose we all knew,
that she wasn’t anything
or anyone’s to become.
I wish I could say that when she didn’t speak,
her silence found solace
in the pages' embrace,
and she described to them the distorted reality
in which she dwelled.
I wish she had played for them a montage
of its tyrannical talons severing the seams of her sanity.
I wish she had shown them the vile gashes,
ragged and raw, chiseled by twisted thoughts
and mangled memories that it had manifested into actuality.
I stood watching, my feet cemented into the ground,
as it doused the flames of her spirit,
imbibed the nectar of her soul,
and stifled the vitality of her flesh.
I wish I could say that
as she ventured down this obscure path,
she carried with her a bag of breadcrumbs,
leaving behind a trail for me to find
when she’d been gone a while.
But as we have all come to realize, in every path
there is a point of no return,
when the bag turns empty,
and the trail ebbs into nothingness.
The Boy
The warm, golden sunlight stained the cemented boundary walls a welcoming ochre,
its edges adorned with barbed wire and shards of glass.
Rusted metal bars wreathed with decaying chains -
the gate, the barrier stood unbolted.
Puzzled shared glances,
children ushered elsewhere.
The wayward course of a football,
a child's ill-fated venture beyond the threshold
- an oblivious march
forward.
The patron of the land beyond,
a putrid stench pervaded the boy's nostrils
- a retaliation to the infringement of territory.
The boy's strides faltered
and his hands pinched his nostrils together,
stifling the impulse to go back.
The manicured green grass ebbed
and the ground unfurled into dirt.
Mice ambled about their domain,
questionable debris scattering the entirety of the scene.
The boy stood unmoving,
the soles of his scrubbed white shoes
affixed to the muddy ground.
Twenty-two pairs of eyes
fastened their vacant gazes
on the oddity that stood before them.
The boy regarded the lines of
shacks sheds huts hovels slums houses
of tethered cardboard, tin, and plastic
that stood braced themselves
on the ground before him.
Hesitantly,
a child cautioned forward.
She put the football in her arms
on the ground and kicked it forward.
The boy with the scrubbed shoes appraised the girl with no shoes.
Her gaunt limbs, sunken cheeks, and torn rags etched themselves into his mind.
The hand that covered his nose fell to his side.
With a solemn nod, he kicked the ball toward her,
and ran back towards the cemented boundary wall.
The Rhythms of Chance
The corridor had
embellished its cemented skin
with a garland of doors.
She stared unblinkingly
as with each step forward
the garland coiled itself tighter
around the tethered walls.
Doorknobs glinted under the ethereal light
in invitation.
She appraised the doors
and the could be’s
that lay beyond them,
her mind whirling to the
desynchronised rhythms of chance
that played simultaneously.
The universe toyed with her,
cackling at her indecision
and guffawing at her determination,
for of course,
all doors had intertwined paths
and all paths
led to the same destination.
Hear from me sometimes
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