Poetry: Zinia Mitra

Monologue

I try

to fill up the void that stares at my heart

step by step

in calculated movements

friends- family- friends again - family again

knowing deep inside none of them belong to me

it is a mind game

a game to fill up the void that stares at my heart

I create memories

like stalactites and stalagmites

concrete forms like knives

I can touch

feel

the coldness of their shapes

their sharpness

sometimes breaking small pieces and melting them

in between my palms. It is all a mind game

game of words

like cryptic crosswords or Hangman in the mind

to drown

the stillness that stares beyond the sunset

as my shadow grows taller and taller and falls

in front of me. I walk east

and deep inside I know

none of these words make any sense

severed from their contexts

from their events long enacted and frozen

in the snow- cave hanging like stalactites

rising like stalagmites

even if some of them melt in the warmth between my palms

even if

some of them glitter like sharp-edged knives

they make no sense

now

in the frozen cave

as I walk east and my shadow grows taller and taller.

It is all a mind game to fill up the void

to bury

the fear of the stillness

that will accompany the rise of the oversize moon

and wake the shadows up,

an attempt to drown the loud ringing silence that peals out

from the void of my heart

with words that make no sense now

with events that have or had

no meanings

with colours that will soon turn colourless

with the rise of the oversize moon.

Meanwhile

I walk east

and my shadow grows taller and taller

and falls in front of me.
***

Zinia Mitra teaches English in the University of North Bengal. She writes from Siliguri, Darjeeling. Her poems have been published in National and International journals. She has authored books.

4 comments :

  1. This monologue by the poet Zinia Mitra touches the sensitive mind of one and all.
    Wonderful expression of thoughts.

    ReplyDelete
  2. 12 years ago, Daphhne Merkin wrote I am lying on my back on the grass, listening to the intermittent chirping of nearby birds; my eyes are closed, the better to savor the warmth on my face. Most probably that was a musing on a journey through darkness. After going through Zinia's monologue read again the Song of Myself by Walt Whitman. Because, she create memories.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you, Mrinal Devbarman. I am glad that the poem spoke to you.

    ReplyDelete

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