Glass Heart Liars

By Pritish Gupta

Closed from the world, we keep ourselves to our hearts 

We live each day laughing, loving but none utter a word 

A word of care, word to show how much we adore the other sitting in our very home

What is family to us, nothing is learning to us

Could we not speak you ask, well my tongue tastes well

My lips come apart at each sip, no reason to not be able to speak

Yet in the evening running around we are told

Even a little slither of hush, little ahhh of pain

Will leave us alone as the world will move on

We studied not a single day, yet I know language 

Books hidden behind ruined academy walls

There is a statue of figure their standing proud

Pointing finger at gets me the stare

A slap on legs for visiting the unknown

All our sacred places have these statues

Sharp, shimmer in any light be it stars and moon

Or the burning passion of sun, 

One day playing I heard a kid pushed a statue down

And it shattered into millions but the people dead silent

His tears fell on the glass all silent 

Not a single whine I have read in books as kids cry

Each night I would hide behind all the locked doors, they say at night is when the souls talk and vanish

So every city corner, every family member 

locked away

So the night doesn't find anyone's secrets

Yet I am explorer of many seas, pirate like thief 

One time I brought this book of saying what you feel, its title read, Say if I ever were to love you.

I got beaten, all red, my blood mixed with tears and the little ahh got my lips chapped

My lips were left burnt for a weak

Ever since that night of tears and my whimpers

I found voice in silence of my room

Anytime the walkman passed, I went silent

The lost soul, and then I wanted to sing

Where do I find home for my own lost soul

Did I walk outside the walled off shores 

Each night I carried a firetorch, I had dance, write, sing my songs when a little boat rocked up near our broken port

They had hang her had she spoke a word

The pretty face under the moonlight, her eyes sparkled like that of the statues inside our kingdom

I kept her Hidden in academy, eachnight we giggled, we laughed, we cried reading and she told how outside everyone talks

We tried to repair what was broken but much of her boat was lost

And much of our knowledge gone

Years went by as the rumors of lost souls talking at night increased

People thought it were the statues that started talking 

Children stopped playing,  no body had come out

Even she felt the life suffocating 

How had I tell her, she had become my freedom

As we became teenagers, as I grew bolder

We danced openly on streets, toyed with walkman trying to catch our spirits emboldened in young heat

One such night, I said to her I love you

My first sentence to anyone ever

As she had done all the talking, I only would sing and she sang along

She grew more aware of the silence

Enough that one morning she broke all statues in academy and got caught

The public silence trial made her so crazy, her screams were the only slither of sound

Rest all was devoid of any meaning

They had cut her toungue, hang her from her throat

I couldn't bear the love I so carefully nurtured

Told her what I read in my very first book 

ever 

I stood tall, I spoke up, nobody understood a word

Yet the children did, children started making the sounds

Suddenly it was deafening then the adults talked

The one hanging her told me, she will not die from this

Hoping I would back down, I still remember the hanging when I was five

As soon as he spoke he turned into the very statue of glass everywhere

The dust that lifted, the gust of sharp particles that swirled and everybit of his body shining in dusk all purple pink and burnt orange of sky

All the adults, held of the tongue of their kids

All trying to run as my parents tried to pull 

me away

I love you was the last that came out of mouth 

As even my own body fell on its knees, the last of something beating I felt

As my eyes looked at her and tear that rolled down my cheek froze on surface

I was the very existence this society wanted to avoid 

The land of cursed liars, so should any speak ill or lie, their body had turn to glass immortalized in time of sacred rites

She had run to me, my parents collapsed on me beating the sharp, harsh, cold, glass, the lunar color dripping of blue as the three figures I had said love you too, cried on my grave

It was love unspoken like many lies this 

society still will hide

By Pritish Gupta