Poetry: Sukanya Basu Mallik

Sukanya Basu Mallik

1. Yes, it is quite dark outside

Yes, it is quite dark outside
& yet I am still asking you to keep the light within you awake,
yes there seems to be no way out
And yet I am asking you to keep the faith,
yes it seems like the end is near
and yet I am asking you to hold your head high,
yes, it seems like we've reached the edge but yet I am asking you to dream-
Of a bigger possibility, a better future and a brighter world!


2. The silent stand-off epidemic

I'm writing in ordinary wording about how I feel,

I feel inadequate, disturbing, enraging

The definition of a 'loner'
Sad descriptions fit me well,
Will a tight-lipped resentment, therefore, be the end?

I'm writing in ordinary wording about how I feel,

I feel wounded, paralyzed and plainly bad
Like a 'loner' abandoned
Left with just silence, that's guaranteed!

Sad descriptions like I told you to fit me well,
Therefore, a tight-lipped resentment shall be the end!


3. To the synonym of my life

She is soft
She is warm
She is pretty
She is home
She's our mum!

Lot to say
Yet nothing can suffice,
Not trying to sound emotional
But she's everything,
She's synonymous with life!

And this is a little ode
For someone in front of whom
All else seems a little
An ode to someone who means a lot,
For the one who lives in our breaths
Our hearts
Our everyday
For the one who lives her life through what's ours!
And these are some lines
For someone whom to us
Could mean the world!


4.Friends

Friends.
What are they?
They begin with 'n' and end with 's'.

They are great on the face,
but when you need them,
They fade into thin air!

They're warm
They're nice
when everything is good
They will be by you,
by your side!
But when you are in the corner?
Oh, that is simple, they'll corner you too!
Because come on, that's what friends do!

They're like seasonal blossoms,
They look good on your Instagram feed
& that stays forever but the blossoms come with a season.

They're friends!
They're congratulatory messages on your first instances of success,
the ones you too never think much about on days that are good
&Yet they are the ones that pain you the most during your most painful times,
But more than anything they do,
what hurts the most is that they don't do anything when they should,
what hurts the most is how they didn't do anything when they could.

Sounding selfish, am I?
Or am I just repeating a true account of history that keeps repeating itself,
 over and over and over again!

You tell yourself you will never get attached again and yet you fail yourself!
Because you're human,
Because your subconscious imposes its expectations,
despite your selfless self that only keeps giving.


You tell yourself 'to let it go'
And yet you know that it will happen again.

Because that's how it works,
because they are friends,
They begin with 'n' and end with 's',
They're nothing but nothingness!

Banjaran

No home, no plan,
In this world full of people
I was a lonely wonderer
A banjaran, a nomadic woman.

Storms swept by,
I had no one,
Neither was I ever there for any,
But you…

I wrote and wrote,
For that was all I could do,
And thus I did.

I wrote and wrote,
For in this sea of endless possibilities,
You were my only boat,
The winds blew hard,
Yet you kept me from drowning!
throughout my journey,
you kept me from drowning.

When amidst all practical people
Well suited and booted,
I found no shelter,
You gave me one,
In the lap of your evergreen hope’s grass;
When I found no soul,
We became lad and lass!

The ink I spend in writing you into paper is like the chlorophyll to my leaves,
And the words that flow- like the anthocyanin to my petals,
For when the world left me bank,
You coloured my entire canvas,
In you this banjaran-
Dreams, lives and breathes!
***

Setu, June 2020