poems

Before the clipping of wings

Once, I felt the stunning, stunning, kaleidoscopic
World
was made of doorways to glittering realms—
a thousand skies
waiting for my astonished feet to enter.

The future sang
in wild colours I didn’t know the names for—
a language of rivers splitting open,
of moons rehearsing their silver scripts behind clouds.

Then came the shrinking—
the narrowing corridors of days,
the blue-edged hours
that bent under the weight of time
like flowers strangled by frost.

My heart became a room
with locked windows,
dust gathering in the corners
where sunlight used to kneel.
The future—a startled bird
I dared not wake.

Because whether I choose the quiet field
or the whirlwind-life,
the clipping of wings folds the sky in on both—
and it aches.

and yet—somewhere under this ribcage,
a throb of fierce music remains,
a tide climbing the ladders of my spine.

I want the old hunger back,
I want, I want, I want
the dangerous dreaming,
the beauty of fearlessness
that burned in my marrow
before the clipping of the wings—
whose triggering memory I have worn like iron.

I want to be light again,
to fling the windows of heaven wide,
my idea of heaven,
to let the earth feel my pulse until it trembles
to walk straight into the wind,
scatter every feather of fear
until even the dark forgets my name.

to lift my face like a dare
towards whatever storm waits—

I want to be, at last,
the one who walks
with re-attached wings.

Beneath the Ritual of Suppression

Memory has teeth, a hush,
A chamber built of breathing wallpaper,
Peeling, alive. I enter it daily.

I step through, barefoot,
into a corridor lined with mirrors,
with versions of me as reflections:
a girl in pearls and incense smoke,
a woman swallowing her name,
a mouth sewn shut with ribbon.

A silver-flecked box beneath my tongue,
its hinges rusted shut with prayers.
No one sees. The wound wears pearls;

I dressed it in silk,
set candles beside the wreckage,
and called it sacred.
I spoke only affirmations,
like spells, sweet words
I fed the universe like seeds,

my throat full of snowdrops and ghosts:

Please grow me a life
that doesn’t shiver in its sleep.

But the ripple moves. It always does.
Through time. Through space. Through me.

I tried to frost the wound in light.
I hung dreamcatchers like talismans,
whispered mantras into tea.
I spun silk out of lavender oil
and rose quartz,
lined the ribcage of my life
with glittering distractions.
I painted over the cracks
with angel wings and moon phases.
I made altars out of dissociation
and called it healing.

But silence echoes.
Even in temples.
Even in rooms where everything smells holy.
The unspoken grows legs,
wanders through the years,
flicking switches I didn’t wire.
It calls to me in mirrors:
“I am you.”

Act of Worship

We are here hunting haunting paradigm shifts
while our exquisitely glistening unreality spills
softly into the night in a secret shrine somewhere;
seraphic dreams (holy, profane, & tender) merge
yet meanings are not alike, they have multitudes,
nuances, that are tied to dreams, tastes, & neuroses
even when we strive for transparency,
while we cling to a fairy‑tale sense of identity
amid turbulent scenes, a delicate, fleeting glance
reveals a much needed allegory of sweetness, of
shadows redecorated by light beams, strategically.
I’d like to fathom you as more than a projected inner ghost or
an angel-minded muse or a presence enclosed
in a cage of their own making or a synthesised archetype,
I know you are real, but at times, for my own sake, I forget.

Her

in her soul-healing era
she is
a magnetic muse
her aura
(mystical and rare)
breathes in
the soft spell of becoming–

she moves through dimensions,
vibrating at a
dream-born
frequency where the
cosmic
folds into her hands,
pure-hearted (she loses no one,
they lose her; their hands cannot
hold the sky)

her dreams are fragments of soul medicine;
her whispers no longer embody
the ache of the ephemeral.

Angels

We will survive
in spite of everything
by birthing ourselves
as many times as we need.
We are the women who dare
to dream and create
in spite of the eyes
of an empty world
We are the snow angels
flying away before
they can clip our wings.
Lustrous,
our transmutations,
our rich inner lives,
our unbreakable spirit.
We shall create our own meanings
we shall write our own narratives
we will find our voices again
after the countless attempts of others
to reduce us to silence.

Ice princess

She walks barefoot through a haunting dreamscape,
tear-stained by echoes of forgotten prayers.
A snow princess with a gown of starlight
and a crown of insight, glowing, nocturnal.
From her heart, something crystalline, ancient,
emerging–
whispering secrets of lives half-remembered
etching memories into the ether of her soul.
She rises, as if part of a song,
as if she is both the seeker and the found,
the dreamer and the dream,
a solitary note in a phantasmagorical harmony.
The wind speaks in tongues she seems to understand,
while she pierces through it as she crosses
bridges she created above chasms
within the labyrinth of being
she reclaims words and concepts
piece by piece, entering the puzzle of her nature.

A Glance

Caught in between worlds and narratives designed
from mercurial substances laced with unfathomable fears,
no longer bothering to convey their intersections
in a way that integrates with the normal brooding whole,
still skipping diseased words that hold too much power,
in hope of discouraging the old forces from slipping in
like a cataclysmic surge disturbing the ebb and flow of being,
and because I have a history, yet I don’t like inhibitions
that render the core watered-down with lifeless inscriptions.
Anyway, the morning found me sipping the lingering trance of
dewy dreams of an all too familiar setting, concealed for years,
interwoven with unfettered thoughts fluttering like harpies
and kind ravens towards, above, and beyond worlds.
Later, I consumed a piece of media that bothered me,
tapping into a growing discomfort at every variation of evil,
but there’s always a quick fix for that, and I know myself –
fortunately I can un-see, un-hear such things – a talent of mine,
born out of necessity, of self-preservation;
well, it’s because sometimes images used to get stuck
and replayed over and over again,
but that’s classified information I don’t want to unlock;
if nothing else, similar instances are usually eclipsed
by the life-devouring shadows
of much more significant worries-
this is why I don’t mind dwelling on the edge of chaos
as long as I find my definition of peace in it:
every new element propels me further, making sure
I don’t get sucked into the vortex of one.
Listen, it’s tiring to be driven by the many-eyed wings
that pierce through subtleties and silvery surfaces,
to spot pattern discrepancies as easily as one blinks,
whilst the narrative blossoms like a beautiful acacia tree,
but this was not an invitation.
In fact, sometimes, my desires are very simple-
it should be obvious by now, and
whether I’m fine or not is irrelevant-
I want faith, freedom, and to be left to exist
between the tree and the river.

The engulfing

Spiralling,
A beckoning sign.
I’ve been teetering on a thin line

The catalyst-
Something as simple
as a knife twist,
disguised.

A reframing of purity-
turned glacial.
A false sense of security,
dissipating.

Withdrawing, inward
submersion.
It’s coming, one step forward-
the possession
the engulfing
It’s on.

The switch has been turned.
The demon has been summoned
I sense the first intimations of life,
feel its claw without being touched,
almost taste its void, hushed
She picks up and licks the knife
it turns into a magic wand in her hand
the open wound morphs into a black hole
I can no longer lick it to exorcise my self
She is free to bleed into me, she’s in control
The last protective layer is pulled off, violently.

After a battle spree
progressing morbidly, artfully
I summon the will
to lull the beast to sleep
before I get silent and still
I’m in it really deep
yet once again manage to make it all seep
out of me as I get ready to take another leap.