Poetry

By Amaya Esparza It started with an “I love you” so genuine it had to be true. But, I should’ve known your words were all lies, and I should’ve read the signs. I was only there to be used, and for you, I let my feelings be abused. Like a moth attracted to fire, to you I was attracted by desire. You dragged me on an emotional roller coaster ride, and I rode it until my feelings died. The blindfold made from fake words and lies slowly began to slip off my eyes. You weren’t heal

By Amaya Esparza I’m swimming across the ocean just trying to reach you, and yet every time you’re within my grasp, the current takes you afloat. I desperately try to chase you on land, but you continue to run away,  choosing solitude over companionship. For just a moment, I’m provided sanction to enter your world, and I explore as much of it as I can. But, it happens again where I have to swim across an ocean and chase you on land just to enter the world of you. It’s an endl

By Amaya Esparza the words i  hold in my  chest are an ever-growing flame, burning burning, burning, my insides.  a flame that has been there since i was a little girl, wondering why; why do i have  to live in such dysfunction? a little girl, wondering why; why does my dad have to be so dysfunctional? a flame that has only grown the more you’ve  shut me down, belittled me, hurt me; then, growing even stronger every time you’ve apologized, saying you’ve changed, you  won’t do

By Amaya Esparza they say by three years old you should at least have some memories. the only memory i have from three is when you were screaming and pounding on the bathroom door, where my mother had locked us in to keep us safe from your wrath. they say it’s normal to have childhood amnesia, and it’s unknown why it happens. it happens to be that most memories we think we have from childhood are actually ones told to us by the adults in our lives, not truly from the depths o

By Amaya Esparza the words across your knuckles. tik, tik, tik, tik, tik BOOM You’ve always had an anger that made the bravest souls cringe and cower. You knew this and yet you would dare turn that anger towards me – the person you claimed to love the most? But that’s a stupid question, isn’t it? You knew that anger would keep me in my place. Ever the obedient daughter I had to be or else I was next. the words across your knuckles. tik, tik, tik, tik, tik BOOM But even the ob

By Amaya Esparza It’s funny   how you only       love me when I’m perfect.             Perfect like the fabricated version of me in your head, who is more sympathetic to your feelings, to your traumas, to your issues than my own; who is more understanding of your emotions, of your breakdowns, of your hardships than my own. Perfect like pretending that  I don’t matter, because how can I when only you’re allowed to have feelings, to have traumas, to have issues, to have emotion

By Amaya Esparza I sway gently in the midsummer breeze, staring up at the sky. My gaze is always fixed on the blazing sun up above. I’m surrounded by my kin, but we’re unable to connect with each other when we’re all supposed to be craving attention from the same source. The sun is supposed to be my one true love, but how can I feel in love with a being that I cannot touch or feel? How can I be in love with someone who cannot get to know me body, mind, and soul? My kin don’t

By Amaya Esparza there is this ache in my chest from the flame in my heart burning its way through the walls attempting to contain it. the walls hold the fire within, but the smoke seeps through the cracks brought by the wear and tear of holding hostage the now unrelenting wildfire. the smoke creeps its way into my lungs and up my throat searching for an escape, but its exit is blocked by an invisible ceiling created from fear, so in a futile attempt to mollify the ever growi

By Shreeja Ravindranathan If I bleed, will you pay heed?  You are my only rock in this turbulent world,  perhaps that explains why  All my questions are answered with stony silence... I looked into the eyes of your children and they were cold, blind and idol workshops, Their empty minds idle. I pored over epics and scriptures,  and versions of you etched on paper  crushed me But I didn’t bleed. They say you can’t draw blood from a stone  I guess faith is truly transformative.

By Shreeja Ravindranathan Compliments from drunk girls in bathrooms of clubs  are humanity’s Sakura blossoms. Fleeting blurs  of slurred flattery  that lotus through pools of vomit  rising above envy and self-loathing always sincere  always raising another woman’s spirits even if they’re  tumbling down. Ladies left the dance floor to pluck a rose but now  they’re on bathroom floors plucking thorns off of each other, (bar) tending breakups and body image issues  with cocktails

By Shreeja Ravindranathan Amma, All those years we spent scrub-a-rub-dub-dubbing  With milk and honey – grating my brown husk to scoop the tender kernel of white, – Have left me honey-mouthed and overflowing with the milk of kindness. Now men want to drink me, like coffee, like the dusk, like whiskey, and caramel and they think I’m still unfair, Amma because I won’t be contained. I am just the monsoon river trying to rise above the(ir) dirt I flowed in for twenty years; the c

By Shreeja Ravindranathan I am thumbing through numerous lives  searching somebody’s smiles for poetry bookmarking texts of pictures of travels  stories of lovers’ journeys  and my fingers are sore and  my ̶h̶e̶a̶r̶t̶ hurt is numb. That is the narrative. I am liking everything  joylessly  feeling something hinged on despair  slumped in a nest of failings  mind flailing  and hands clasping a cup of scalding tea.  I am steeped in thoughts. And for a breath, all that is concrete

By Shreeja Ravindranathan In this house, We each occupy a room and worries occupy our minds.  And  the realty and reality  are rent by our howls  from being yoked to corporate ogres  for 9 hours a day  and more. I don’t know if Amma had lunch and Acha doesn’t know if I spent lunch  crying in a bathroom stall. And we are three husks of people, waiting for a weekend to flower into a family. Dead lines tick in the bags beneath our eyes,  Bills encash the black of our hair for gr

By Johnny Walker By Johnny Walker

By Manpreet Singh इश्क़ से अगला शहर, नफरत का होता है अब नफ़रत की दहलीज़ पर अगर आ ही गए हो तो- ख़ुदा खैर करे बस तुम नफरत मुझसे करना- मेरी यादों से नहीं, साथ गुज़रे ही काफ़ी लम्हे  बस तुम नफरत मुझसे करना- उन लम्हों मै की उन बातों से नहीं, इस दिल को माना जाता है एक समंदर जज़्बातों का  बस तुम नफरत मुझसे करना- मेरे लिए तुम्हारे दिल मैं उन जज़्बातों से नहीं, ये नायब होते है इश्क़ मैं दिए हुए वो तोफ़े बस नफरत तुम मुझसे करना- मेरी तुम्हें दी हुई उन सौग़ातों से नहीं, मिलना-बिछड़ना तो

By Manpreet Singh वाक़िफ़ क्यों नहीं कर देते, इस कदर तुम बातें क्यों छुपाते हो ये मासूमियत के तुम्हारी भी क्या ही कहने, मालूम है हमें- जो बाज़ार मे ये तुम हुस्न पर बोलियाँ जो लगते हो  नियत मे खोट तो ख़ुद की है, फिर ये वफ़ाई का पाठ तुम हमें क्यों पढ़ते हो  प्यार को तुम्हरे प्यार कहूँ या जिस्मों की सौदागिरी, सच-सच बोल दो ना क्या करना क्या चाहते हो  रज़ामंदी मैं भी अब तो रज़ा नहीं होती, हूह!! यूँ बोल कर हर बार ऊँचा अब तुंम अपनी बात मनवाते हो  वक्त है के अब ये रास्ते अलग हो जाए त

By Manpreet Singh सुना है ये कलम, चलते-चलते अब रुक जाती है क्यों, क्या हुआ  क्या आजकल हमारी याद थोड़ा कम आती है  मैं गुज़रा एक परवाना हूँ तो क्या हुआ तेरे ज़हन का हिस्सा भी तो हूँ मैं, याद कर लिया करो हमें भी मुर्शद- हमें तो तुम्हारे याद ना करने की बात, बख़ूब सताती है चलो मैं फिर भी इक याद ही तो हूँ, फिर आजकल कहाँ मशरूफ़ रहते हो तुम- सुना है कम वो भी नहीं जिस चेहरे पर ये नज़र तुम्हारी अब पाल-पाल बिताती है खैर अब जो हो, क्या ही कर सकते हो तुम- कल हमारे लिए जो लिखा करते थे, ...

By Manpreet Singh From Writer to Diary: Here I come, returning back to you I thought I was moving forward, Yet, you still stand on the same dot— Where I left you My Dear Diary, I’m returning back to you You have dirt on your cover’s page, Whilst I have it on my face The sitting pen next to you tells the tale of you—missing me That unfinished poem is so eager to be finished Oh dear, what have I done— I remember when no one listened to my silence, You were there—you were the on

By Manpreet Singh The ticking of the clock stopped—so did the sense of regret At last, the time came when me and Death finally met I was asked if I had anything important to do before I go Oh, this is how you joke (me) How could I do something, lying there without any breath’s flow? I felt peace in the end, freed from agony and sorrow Pity—I would never see who said last goodbyes on the morrow One me lying there, one me flying here— The chariot of Death, I don't know taking m

By Manpreet Singh If I may ask— Where are you? I’ve been waiting for our worlds to collide For how long, we must stay drifted Now I am looking for you, so shall you for me I think it’s time—time for to unite We shall knit our stories now—enough talks of this world It’s time—we quench the thirst of our souls, And let our love grow under the shadows of starlight Now it’s not a chase anymore— The question is— when will we find us? Once found—we shall merge in our eternity’s infi