Dear Discomfort

 

Dear Discomfort,

Puncture my parachute so I find my wings and fly.

Take me away from the outside world so I connect with the person in the mirror.

Cage me in a bubble so I break out of it.

Silence me so I find meaningful things to say when I regain my voice.

Push me into the dark so I find my way through the long nights.

Corner me so I reclaim my space. Violate my space so I erect boundaries.

Hold me close to the ground so my urge to stand tall and proud intensifies.

Bind me tight so I learn to play with knots of limitation.

Hit me when I’m down so I savour the ups when the rollercoaster turns.

Drown me in doubt so I wade towards my survival.

Take away the false shine, so I’m not blinded by glimmer. Snatch a real diamond or two, so I learn its value.

Punch me in the stomach so I learn to stand up for myself.

Lure me into Candyland so I separate fantasy from reality.

Lay me in rock bottom so I look up to the sky.

Pull the ground beneath my feet so I find new legs to stand on.

Stretch me so I know how to reach.

Pin me to the wall so I learn not to beat my fists against it.

Render me weak so I grow to be strong. Leave me helpless so I discover tools to help myself.

Burden me so I’ll relieve myself of some battles.

Drop me out of another’s world so I shoot for the stars in the galaxy.

Throw me in a cesspool of agony so I relish every moment of ‘happy.’

Place me in a well of tears and I’ll cherish every drop of the elixir of joy.

Destroy all that I’ve built so I create a better home for myself.

Erase all that I was so I get to rewrite who I am.

I’ve you to thank for any success, acceptance and progress that has been splashed onto my palette.

Thank you for being my cheerleader. My saviour. My best friend.

Kudos to you for knowing what I need before I do.

I look forward to when you come and visit me next.

Copyright © Roshni Ramanan

Care – Slam poetry

Dedicated to all of you, everyone who reads this and anyone who needs this:

(To be read in the form of spoken word poetry)

This poem is about a friend
A friend that we all need
It goes by the name of Care

While liberty pushes the door open
Care knocks, and waits

While worship pretends that you’re flawless
Refuses to acknowledge
your messy habits
Care joins you for lunch
when you chew with your mouth open

While charm looks gorgeous
with full makeup, in party wear
Care looks straight out of bed
and oh-so-attractive

Faith is blind
closes its eyes when you’re snacking at midnight
though you promised to diet
Care chuckles knowing
you’ll get to your goals in the end

While passion floods, overwhelms
Care flows like a stream, soothing

While desire is urgent, Care is patient
Desire asks you for more,
like a telemarketer who won’t put the phone down
Care already has everything it needs

While intimacy is too close, too much,
but never enough,
Care knows where to draw the line.
Intimacy is that big packet of chips
that always leaves you wanting
But, Care is just the right amount of sugar
in your morning coffee

Kindness can feel like charity you don’t deserve
Care feels like the little nudge you needed
that couldn’t have come at a better time

While passion oversteps boundaries,
comes out of the blue moon,
vanishes like it never was,
Care is like that next-door neighbour
you can call on for help
but knows where to draw the line

Trust depends on you for protection
Care knows your secrets without you telling
Trust is that promotion you sweated for
Care is that bonus that comes along
the bonus you’re still not sure what you did to deserve

Admiration can put you on a false pedestal
Care keeps you humble and grounded

While sympathy gets drenched with you
In the puddle of your tears
Care knows to hold an umbrella in the rain

While pity feels like a boss on his high horse
Care can feel like the coworker you so relate to

While courtesy asks for your permission
before taking the last slice of pizza
Care sees that you haven’t eaten out in a while
knows not to ask for a bite

While affection is a playful child
that jumps for attention
Care is the mother hen

Joy can feel like riding
the high of a giant wheel
all the while knowing
that you’ll have to get down soon
Care is a tightrope walker
every time the wind blows
Care steadies itself and regains balance

While value looks at you
like a prized investment
Care is always down
to put some money in a startup

Advise is the older sibling,
who sees you broken,
assumes you need saving
Care realises that
all the holes punctured in you
lets you breathe in new experiences

Gratitude can get transactional
I owe you one, for everything you’ve done
Care doesn’t need a contract
to give you a hug on a bad day

Love fears, care is clear,
love wonders whether it should leave
but care knows it’s here to stay

Possessiveness bolts the door at night
lest you walk out after lights out
Care keeps the door ajar
knowing that you’ll choose right

Bondage is like a rope that ties
tethers you in its bind
But Care is that one knot
you pull it, you’re free

Acceptance looks behind
Hope makes plans for tomorrow
Care finds all its answers in
right here, right now

No matter your place in the world today,
as you care for yourself, day after day,
whether you’re relishing isolation
or struggling in silence,
I need you to know
About you, I care.

Copyright © Roshni Ramanan

A lone touch: Poem

A lone touch reaches my inaccessible place,

Says you don’t have to be alone anymore,

Caresses, stings, strokes, singes

When it pushes me away – I protest

I’d take your hot-cold touch instead of nothing – I insist

I try to hold on tight enough, but not too tight

The palm basks in the pressure at times

The fingers slither away at others

I’m tired of trying to hold on to things that don’t want to stay

Yet I’ve no choice

The touch has replaced the void in my inaccessible place

Becoming a part of me that I can’t erase

So push or pull, burn or boon

The touch has to stay, I see no other way
Copyright © Roshni Ramanan

Who are you today?

Who are you today?

I often wonder

Have you geared up to tackle blunt realities or are you still clouded by conspiracy theories?

Are you still a cosy armchair expert or are you jumping into the field and getting your hands dirty?

Is your full-time job what you’d like to do in leisure? Perhaps, you published the comics, that the seven-year-old you unleashed on walls and chart paper alike.

If genetics wins the Nature vs Nurture debate, then perhaps you’ve found your safe haven in education. I bet you’re raising hell by inspiring your students to rebel.

I hope you’ve embraced your awkward self and still happily flail on the dance floor, fumble song lyrics and stay wary of glass.

I pray you still get lost, every now and then, and go through a memorable adventure to find your way back. Who knows? Maybe those days are long gone and you’ve turned into a visuospatial whiz now.

Do you still talk in your sleep, rush to the sports section in the newspaper and like your coffee strong?

Is your sense of smell still your superpower? I can imagine your distasteful glance when you sniff out spoilt milk in the kitchen, all the way from the terrace.

Does your mind still get its flipflops done by solving puzzles on the commute to work? I picture you multitasking, with your enthusiastic ambidexterity.

I can’t see a bumbling play pal strapping on the boots of parenthood, but enough time has passed for you to build a sweet home and a sweeter family.

I wonder if you’re saving the world, one brick at a time like you always told me you would. You tend to spring into action when it comes to charity.

I know you mastered many a foreign tongue to visit alien lands across the globe. Are you happily experiencing a different city every day? Perhaps, that’s why you’ve never returned home.

Can you imagine, in the world where everyone seems to know everyone, we managed to lose touch and stay lost?

Well, I found the suspense we were looking for in the detective novels we sprinted across. I’ve replaced them with my wondering about you, which is a consistent source of thrill.

At the end of my guessing games, I always come to the same conclusion:

No matter who you are today, I wish you were around.

Copyright © Roshni Ramanan

Goals: To introduce a third person to the reader through an ambiguous, possibly unstable author.

Offer the reader enough space to determine what to believe and what not to, so as to build a caricature of the third party, who may entirely be a figment of the author’s imagination.

To instil a sense of nostalgia, melancholy and loss where ‘loss’ could mean a parting of ways or a more permanent separation, like death.

A Silhouette of Conscience- Poem

A vibrant form engulfs me
In times of sorrow and glee
It causes confusion to bend the knee
Its purple radiance sets me free

It strikes a harmonious chord
In dreary times of discord
It balms the incisions of indecision
Stomps on the indolence of apathy

Severs the immoral cord
Takes up the guardian sword
Sways you from the aches of mistakes
And reminds you what’s at stake

I like being this stranger’s ward
Worshipping the silhouette of the Conscience lord