Cradling Anxieties

By Kabir Dev Mittra

The night bird sings in the dead of night, as I lay my head on the pillow, the monster creeps out from under my bed and asks me why I am so mellow.

I have nothing to answer, no anecdote to recant, no poem to recite, nothing but a story, a story which begins from the end, the dead of night.

Even in the bleak midwinter, The warmth of fear doesn’t seem to pass Crippling through my bones Crawling up my spine. Sitting alone in the silence, as the darkness falls above, The sky grows bloody There is no time for love.

The blood on my hands doesn’t seem to fade, Blood which is not red, Blood which doesn’t belong to someone else. I grasp my hands together, As I sink deeper in myself. Alone, I think, I feel,

I have no one to cradle except my own anxieties.

I wake up, still in the dark, the elder clock chimes, as I break apart. I shut the windows, I lock the doors. But I know that this won’t be enough to keep my thoughts at bay.

They barge in like savages, they grasp my heart and condemn my soul. I feel it, I feel it again. The pestilence of temptation spreads through my veins, poisoning my mind, gnawing at my weakness. Getting deeper inside my brain.

Noon is afraid to come, it shadows my heart to repeat, as they assume their seat, and send out their discrepancies, meddling with something that doesn’t belong to me, that doesn’t belong to them.

Even as I recant, I feel the chill rushing through me. The feeling of bloodshed,

the smell of blood on a battlefield. But, this war is worse, worse than the gallows and terrains, worse than the Trojans and Spartans. This is not between men but, a battle in oneself.

So I ask the monster under my bed, what he thinks? He looks in my eyes and says, I don’t know from where to begin.

By Kabir Dev Mittra

By Kabir Dev Mittra