Do's and Don'ts

By Pankhuri Shrivastava

Don't ask me to talk

for I have gifted my words

to many and silence to none.

 

Don't ask me to stay

for I have not known

how to make homes out of people.

 

Don't ask me to blink

for I don't know how to unmake

what I have made of me.

 

Don't tell me

to use your privileges

for it reduces both my soul and spirit.

 

Don't tell me I am easy

for you don't know yet

what a piece of work I can be.

 

Ask me instead

where I begin

and I'll show you to my end.

 

Ask me instead

how I got here and I'll walk with you

on the roads I have taken

and haven't yet.

 

Ask me instead

what I am made of and I'll show you

where I break and how.

 

Let's just be.

For a minute.

Drunk on our favourite old music.

Sleep in the corner of our eyes. Happiness over the rest.

Blank thoughts between tailored memories.

 

Let's just be.

For a minute.

Dazed in the faded low light.

Staring at our shadows on the wall.

Staring at everything between us, now.

Staring at the beauty of the impermanence of the time we've labeled as ours.

 

Let's just be.

For a minute.

Before you leave. Before I let you go.

For happiness may not be in the forever as I have been told so often.

I smelt it in moments that were passing by unnoticed.

 

Let's just be.

For a minute.

The old-fashioned, two lost souls.

Swimming in a fish bowl, year after year.

Let's just be.

 


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