Mental Peace

By Pragnya Paramita

My mother taught me
Not to make mountains
Out of molehills
And that it's okay to let go
At times, when you know
Some things aren't worth it.
When there are a thousand thoughts
Rushing across at breakneck speed
Across your racing course of a mind
Slow down, breathe, think.
At every midnight hour
My mind flips a switch to
Travel unconsciously to the past
And to mull over unsaid, undone things
And I, like an anchor of a ship
Sink into the bottomless ocean
Of rememories and remembrances
Digging up the sand and trying
All the time to come up to the surface
To breathe, clawing at the present.
When someone throws a life jacket
Of surety and hopes, we cling on
Desperately, because we always fall
For the same old dullness of
The rusted sparkle of a peaceful life.
Peace is not a white dove
Carrying an olive branch
Its a black crow with its feathers
Ripped out, torn and bloodied
And it still flies, because this time
It doesn't want war.
Peace is not a a white flag,
Instead it is a colourless flag
A prism of uncertainty, of imbalance
A blank canvas where we can
Paint what we choose to
We could dip our fingernails
In red, yellow, green and
Draw peace as a four leafed clove,
A dragonfly with shimmery wings
Or even a tiger, if we want
You see, our own peace, is in our own hands.