Self Portrait

There's a drunken pathway

that runs between her brows.

It runs almost consistently

right from dusks to dawns.

It's particularly hard to tread,

lest you know her very well!

It's full of thorns and blooms

from all around the gardens of dwell.

But she embarks on

over and over again.

She worries that the thorns

haven't pricked enough of her shell.

She frets that she wouldn't break out

in ways that would earn applause;

she ponders day in and day out

what they might make of a pause.

It's less complicated than it sounds,

for with the sun shining in her eyes

she knows her way around.

It's actually the deep-water dives

in the centre of her forehead,

that seem impossible to manoeuvre.

Once in, she struggles to come out,

never finding enough breath in her to carry over.

She keeps counting her breaths:

One, Two, Three...

until the day she finally implodes,

calm and content with glee.

The throbbing eyelids

are finally at peace.

Now completely shut,

they aren't searching piece by piece

for hidden meanings embedded in the streets

around the mouths of others.

She had wondered if any of them

would ever really match hers.

Now the audience is baffled,

wondering what's this pause about.

They wait for someone to announce,

"It's a technical glitch, over and out!"

But there's no sound,

not even a pin drops.

Soon, they begin to filter out,

they'd barely waited a few minutes, tops!

And now, the hall is empty

with no one to keep watch.

She rises back up to the surface,

she'd made herself a notch.

She sighs in relief

as she swims out from the pool of her eyes.

It had been a long journey,

but one very much worth the tries.

And if you look at her now,

there's a buttery road constructed between her brows.

She radiantly glides through it

day in and day out.

~Khyati

The Stress Chain

It comes at nightfall

when you're all alone.

It finds you lonely,

ready to form bonds.

It comes at noon

when you feel alone.

It links itself

to your breastbone.

It comes at dawn

latching onto drops

of cold sweat

across your furrowed brow.

It comes and goes

without permission.

This stress chain

has no intermission.

We pass it on

from one to another.

Each one accepting

as a gift from a lover.

It cannot be denied,

nor happily carried.

So we close our eyes

and wait for it to glide.

~Khyati

The Peahens

For ages, people have wondered why

the peahen is bland and the peacock bright.

Not many know the real reason why;

the legend goes far and wide.

Once upon a time,

in some utopian prime,

peahens ran around freely all the while

doing everything their minds designed.

Spreading their wings in numerous ways,

as they all freely danced away.

Then one fateful day, came along the troubling tide.

The peacocks started to think of themselves as high;

higher than their very counterparts- what a plight!

This idea made their chests swell with pride.

At first, it was merely a bother to the hens

but then it grew and grew to grasp them all in clutches.

It was agonizing to have every other cock

display the ‘correct’ way of doing things round the clock.

How to spread their wings and how to dance

were now governed by ways that would put in a trance

the males who enjoyed the show;

that was all there was to know.

This went on for generations and generations,

and hope vanished like a train leaving the station.

After years of anguish, came another fateful day

when the peahens collectively decided to end it all away.

They gathered each one and spread the word

and together they did something that stirred,

and shocked the entire world, its children and its weather⁠—

the peahens were now devoid of all colourful feathers.

~Khyati