The Day The Sky Lost All Its Clouds

By Vishikha Deogawnka

In the haze of these storms What walls stand strong

I fail to understand An uneasy peace

A numbing tranquillity A comfortable sickness A nauseating familiarity

Gnawing at the edge of the ether

The walls are closer than ever

The creepers undulating and unyielding As the cruel wind whistles through their Ghostly pallor at midnight

Bringing tears of sorrow

More pain, more torture for the ‘morrow.

Swaying, falling,

Shattering like a smattering

All crashing against walls, walls The great towering walls

Red brick and cement of steel, A thousand nails,

Bloodied invaders Scarlet, scarlet

The walls never forgive or forget.

The grotesque curse of cruelty, Selfishness must bear heavily. Rough and rusted

Tough and unbusted Invisible steed shackles Gripping your wrists Pinning your back

A cage of barbed wire

Against the unbreakable walls Obstructing every road you wish to take There is no escaping this now

For each path leads to the same dismal end For each path ends in the same hopelessly Undulating bends.

The burning sands beneath your bare feet

Seeps through your toes to reach your soul it seems, Scorching heat waves travel to your brain,

Like acid trickling through my veins.

You scream with all your might Yet not a soul is in sight Parched throat

Uneven gasps Strangled cries, Hallucinating laughs

You tremble and shiver from within

It’s far from cold

Yet you’re frozen and dim

Oxygen isn’t plentiful in the air you breathe anymore Smarting tears leave your eyes bloodshot and sore Aching limbs

Downtrodden will

And slowly, above you the sky

Fades into a blinding fire, scorching dry A dastardly scarlet of unexpected pain An apocalypse you’d never choose fain

And now it’s the colour of blood that shrouds,

The day, the sky lost all its clouds.

In the darkest nights of our melancholy You hear a haunted whisper

Desolately disembodied Sombre, sombre,

Fire again? Burning inside Kindled so long ago

Alive amidst the dreariest hues

Wooden planks Nails and storms Uprooting it all Taking you away Flashback, loud cries

Sharp words, sound cracks They take you

They take you away now, Sombre, sombre,

As you drown in an eternal slumber.

You wish it was over

You’re suffocating, you want it to end

Little do you know

That this is only the beginning of the end

For in between the voids that fill this grey shroud, Let me tell you about the day,

The sky lost all its clouds.

Parched was the earth, parched for love, The rain of joy

The tremendous wave of tremulations and emotions, All distant and untouchable,

Like the horizon.

Cathartic were the repercussions, Trepidation and surmounting.

Felt by so few Cared by fewer still For no one survived No one so sublime

For each cranny and nook, Every crevice and crook,

Shuddered for the lack of the breath of wind, Shivered for the lack of caress from Him.

Intriguing was the phenomenon

Disturbing was the dust, that made eyes burn How does a sky be so overcast,

Without the clouds it lost in the past? How does a heart feel heavy

When all it does is throb numbly?

Sans physical obstructions,

Sans any other way of retribution

Nothing to absorb the harmful nothing protective remains, And the crimson disc of the sun, in the ether is floating, Heralding death and other endings.

And slowly, slowly, the entire dome of the sky, Fades into a blinding fire, scorching dry.

A dastardly scarlet of unexpected pain,

An apocalypse you’d never fain.

And now it’s the colour of the blood that shrouds,

The day the sky lost all its clouds.

By Vishikha Deogawnka