Where The Poets Went To Die

By Aashna Sethi

Like a black hole , a person carries more sadness than they can acknowledge. It’s like stones in a pot of water, they pile on and on until you suddenly realise, the water has long overflowed and when that time does comes? You will be knee deep in the grief, hopelessly  frailing to remain dry but soon enough you will be numb to the  dampness .  The water trickles out slowly drowning you in the ocean; it has now become .  Never anymore affected by anything old or new . What is sadness?  Sadness is too soft of a word you threw around carelessly , maybe because you lost your favourite toy but what would you have said when you lost  your soul?   It is too soft of a word for it to be used  to box the agony the human heart seldom or perhaps , often goes through.  It sounds too close to something soft and dull rather than the jagged ends that bite and a shine that blinds; eventually making you immune to happiness - the kind that greets you in fleeting moments of pretence . If I could, I’d take all the pain , the grief , the losses , the regrets and the loose seams , from the kind hearts and weave into a cloth or perhaps some fragile bricks and once all is said and all done, I would patiently go brick by brick and lay a foundation , to form a castle the poets could go to and find solace in the walls that mirror their minds ; whispering  not sweet nothings , but bitter everythings , so at last they  feel at home. The very same poets who take pain and make it into something so beautiful, can finally have a place they belong to .  

By Aashna Sethi