What I Want With Life, Is Not Here

By Rashmi Dhongade

What I want with life, is not here.

It's not.

It's in the middle of those scrawny pages that hide those precious dead flowers.

It's in the middle of the lulls that crawl between those sad odes.

It's in the mighty-ness of the sky and the depth of the ocean.

It's in those never-ending pledges of flowers and the cocoon caused by a small kid's smile.

It's in the hollowness of the guitar that hangs above me strumming me to life.

It's in the loneliness of that singleton-disappearing sunset.

And all those daydreams that I could never give up or forfeit.

It's carved on the stones thrown into the seas.

It's in the sound of the ocean when you pick up a shell and hold it close to your ear, music… isn’t it.

It's in the sparks of those flames that burn my lust for living a lucid dream.

My life resides in those Plan A-s I had, the silly sweetness of those immeasurably naive fantasies.

My life is woven into a willow hoop chasing away those nightmares.

It's in the saltiness of those rivers flooding softly on pillows every night.

It is those sanities of incomplete sentences, and hiccups after a frustrated cry, that make you human.

It resides in the jealousy of fire and shyness of forget-me-nots.

They wanted to teach me how to leave my dreams behind, and one day I will teach them how I lived my dreams, unapologetically.

When they said I had no plan, I knew I don't have one

But I believe I don't need a plan, just one thing at a time.

And one day, I might be one you would be listening to, to something that may or may not rhyme.

I live and will live a life of a paradox, till everyone in this world believes in their own clueless absurdities.

I have no clue what life is for me.

But it definitely isn't here.

By Rashmi Dhongade