By Neha Bhatia
"As I sit down to write a poem
My pen bleeds tears of a broken heart
I tumble down in an abyss of dilemmas
Unable to figure out where to start
I scribble and sketch
Mannequins of wrath
Trickling through my fingers
Is the sweat of my breath
Combing through seas
And scouring through ash
Of memories past
I discover a stash
Of notes and question marks
Dangling above my head
Like clinks of glass bangles
Like aroma of freshly-baked bread
Sometimes I dip myself
In the white of my notebook
And arrive in the meadow
That ever since I yearned to look
Where sunset flames orange
The colour of new bridal mourn
And birds flutter in the mist
Above the jaunty golden field of corn
Flipping to a blank page, I set out to peek
Into the galaxy of my soul
Zillions of worlds dance within me
I am frantic to see them all
Teensy diamond-like stars
Chime around my ears
And sun-trimmed clouds
Hover like stuffed toy bears
My pen loses control
And gallops in a gush of storm
Above tussocky green grasses
Breaking all norms
It hurtles in the dark ocean of space
Where levitate the great writers’ books
Plummeting into a lonely ocean
To sniff vellichor in artists’ tombs and literature’s nooks
My fingers wet with my pen’s ink
I then set my foot into a time machine
Travel back in time to a vintage mountain
Where I romanced my lover drunk in love gin
Wellsprings of passion and colours
Swirled and babbled in our veins
Everything was poetry back then
Oozing with ogles of jewels & necklaces, but no trappings or chain
Engulfed amidst dewdrops and lush breeze
We kissed and kissed and kissed all night
That torrents of rain poured even in the barren red sands of mars
And washed away all our plights
Under the lime moon and purple stars
Fierce electric ecstasies pulsated through twilight
Even fiery volcanoes spewed glitter
Cosmos set blaze in a dance of stunning sights
I returned to find myself suspended
In a parachute mid air
Freefalling in a chasm
That looked like a mad poet’s lair
Frissons of restless word wisps
Mumbled in my heart
As I sipped my coffee
Awaiting to write the next part
This time I delved
Into the puzzling realm of mathematics
Doodling formulae and equations
Suddenly I turned into an insane geek
My characters pounced upon me
To feel, to feel
But my pen kept scrawling
I didn’t know how to deal
Reels of my emotions
Squashed numb
And I found myself
Rolling my eyes, bobbing my head like a dumb
Tears squooshed dry
Bronze rust and gossamer powder
I saw cracks in the mirror
My reality became blur
Found myself
Drifting in emptiness
In a cesspool of distant echoes
Whirling tailspins of mess
Nothing to say, nothing to see
I disintegrated and dispersed in a crease
Like puffballs of dandelion
Slipstreaming in the breeze
Splotches of liquid ink on my lips
I rested my desensitized fingertips
Melancholy enveloped me
My brain screen flashed glitch and blip
I saw the lost paper, spent dimes
Couldn’t even churn out
A single nice poem
Oh, how I wasted my time
Losing all the things I wanted to have and keep
I lament, in a vacuum I waft & sweep
Nothing in universe is worthy anymore
I weep, I weep, I weep
In sighs and grumbles
I abandon my pen & let go of myself
I rise in the dusky wind
Like a wrecked magic elf
Bored, I flip through my notebook in dismay
Inside it, I never knew, that a phantasmagoria lay
Reading all the pages I had written
I laughed hysterically, my black-stained hand trembling away
Surprised to find
The soil beneath my feet, fecund and loam
I realized just then
I had already arrived where I wanted to - home."