Poems

Breaking the shackles

DELVING deep into the darkness
Contrasts sharply, this starkness
This facade, the outer shell
calm, serene.That gory hell,
Rotting inside, eaten away,
That true self, led astray.
Colourless life, those empty pages,
Died silent deaths, impotent rages.
Fire running through the veins,
Burnt itself out, the embers remain.
Protracted introspections, a self so vain,
Digging deeper deeper, going insane.
Hours spent in idle contemplation,
To reason out this dissipation.
This wandering mind lacks a foothold,
Frivolity sweeps you over its threshold.
Can’t lie anymore about your worth,
Hide behind a chance of birth.
Cry for freedom, from deep within,
To follow blindly a dream, a whim.
Rigid framework binds disciplined life,
Break the shackles that conventions define.
Break away, break free, go for the kill,
Worshippers of conformity can’t break your will.
Back down, back away, the surface demands,
Inside you are straining to take the chance.
That thought often sighs,
It struggles, it tries.
That emotion, inert it lies,
With practised ease, itself it denies.
In the grave of our own making,
Lies the soul shivering, shaking.
Without the artificial self, the gaudy coffin,
The true being lies shrivelled within.

— Divya Kaushik

Sadness

Sadness is a bird of prey,
and it has no nest.
Wherever it finds a lonely heart,
There it takes rest.
It seeps away all joy
And all the charm of life.
The heart starts weeping,
A sad note when it strikes.
Let not this bird stay for long,
Make it fly away with a bang.
Let the bird of happiness rest,
And sing in your heart.
Joy is elixir of life,
Sadness is a disease.

— Sakshi Sharma