Backup for Bad Times by Vama Gor
It begins with you setting up your own alarms
Dreading that if you miss it,
There is no one to blame but you.
Your clothes don’t come crisp and ironed
You hunt for an iron and then an ironing board
saving yourself from burning your fingers.
The fridge isn’t a safe haven for cravings
But a house for half-eaten meals
Stale milk and rotting vegetables
You wish you had a car
And then that you never had one
Just had someone to drive you till the ice cream parlour
School seemed so much better
You dealt with the satan called Mathematics
But you at least laughed wildly…
Only if mother was around
Running after you with her rolling pin
You would kill for that right now.
I know.
And just like that
In dreams & broken realities
We enter the threshold of adulthood
Waving childhood goodbye
Preserving the little child in you
As a backup for bad times.
Adulting doesn’t come with a manuscript by Utkarsh Kumar
As you lie down on
your filthy bedsheet
after your thirty-fifth birthday
you realize
adulting doesn't come
with a manuscript.
that there are still questions
left unanswered
jobs that drain out every
drop of blood left untouched
pending bills inside your
first shelf you open every morning
left unseen
and your mind unequipped.
that the brainstorming session
you walked out halfway because
your mind failed to register
even a tiny bit of information
will not be the last thing
you will reluctantly break out of
that there will be more chances
of escapism
from the boundaries you chose
for there at your home
your mother needs your
help like a baby now
and though
the interminable guilt of your
failures will kill you
a part of you would still be alive
proudly
selflessly
tending to her.
that most of the bedtime stories
you every night demanded
as a child
make absolutely no sense now
that their exotic worlds
unlike yours
never worked on rigid rules
and they don't teach you
this in schools
that by the time your childhood
flashed by
under the ever-changing sky
you fell into this beautiful trap too
that adults have every path sorted
is true.
that your parents are not
omnipotent
but society's restless hostages
and they don't speak about this
until you're fit and warm
inside your colleges.
rather
you learn yourself.
you learn that not having
successful decisions about everything
is a little disheartening but
as normal as it can be
that your father was fascinated
by the thought of living a
perfectly happy life so even though
the traces of his bruises
were visible
he didn't let you see through them
that now you won't find
your lamentable blue toothbrush
already replaced with a new one
having stickers from your
favourite cartoons
so you resistingly
crawl out of your bed
to buy a new blue one
that when your mother
sits with you for the morning tea
wrapped in her favourite shawl
you gifted her from your first earnings
she is not yearning for tea but you
because there are incalculable
vulnerable parts inside her
and she wants you to know
that a fragile part of your heart
never grew up
never has to grow up
because it hoards all
the nursery rhymes
the childhood times
and the fairy tales that you now
watch with your daughter
with needed trigger warnings
and you know all that
momentarily happiness
keeps you sane.
and those romantic movies
you imagined yourself in
with your first love
kissing you loudly behind the doors
while it snowed outside
now stay as reminiscences
for your first love taught you love
not by loving but by leaving
while the second one
stayed back with you
and every day teaches you
what family is
so you realise today
that love and heartbreak
are a part of life.
and maybe everything is
because this time when you ran into
your best friend who slept
with your first lover
you don't push yourself away
but hug them while
they tell you about their experiences
so slowly you cut through your fences
and ask them to meet again
because this time when you
found your father cursing some
new technology
you don't feel ashamed
instead
you help him
because this time when your
mother asked for a chocolate bar
you brought her two
like she used to
because now when you want to cry
you don't hide rather
you curl up in your lover's lap
and realise that
adulting doesn't come
with a manuscript.
you still walk out of those
ridiculous brainstorming sessions
and you read out your
favourite story to your daughter
you teach your father how
to open up and dance like he never did
your ex-best friend calls you to invite you
to their wedding
and you don't hesitate to accept it
because somewhere
when you grew up you suppressed
all your useless flames
for your mother told you
that it's wrong to take anything
with yourself in death.
and then you get to know
during your tour
that your mother
has lost her will to live
so you come back home
and celebrate her birthday because
she always forgets it after all
at night when she tells you
to take her favourite shawl
away from her
you laugh and kiss her cheeks
without realising
what she wanted to tell
and leave.
she wanted to tell that the next morning
when you sit for your morning tea
please, only make one cup.
The Journey of Adulting by Khatija Khan
the journey of adulting is not
a one-day affair.
it is rather a roller coaster ride
into a million zigzagging moments every day.
you will not master adulting
when you turn eighteen
or with a right to vote any political party.
but while you learn to use jaggery
when you run short of sugar
and boil milk before your mother
without letting it spill.
you will have Sundays
when you wake up before the sun,
when peace will sit on your lap
and squirrels will guide you to their
secrets spots.
you will also have Mondays when you
miss the college bus
and your hair will be full of chaos
resembling a tailor bird's nest.
your eyes will be kohl smeared,
full of tears on the lamest jokes sometimes
and sometimes, you will cry all alone,
without a voice.
the journey of adulting is neither
composed of Earnshaw's theorems
nor based on Fayol's principles.
it is neither rigid nor full of flexibility.
it will constitute the difference
between bolts and screwdrivers
and the art of holding the torch
at the perfect angle
for your father while he
bandaids electric wires.
you will turn sad young boys
into happy poetry sometimes
and sometimes you will breakdown
and go silent like an old film cassette.
you will give your heart
to complete strangers
and even side-eye your closest relatives.
you will try to fit yourself
within people's good books.
but then one night, the stars
will forget to shine
and you will realize you are the moon.
the journey of adulting is smooth.
your lover will win your heart.
your best friend will call you the best.
your favourite cousin will ignore
everyone else just to gossip with you.
you presence will be awaited at
reunions of your schoolmates
until darkness eats all the colour
and you are replaced by some other human.
the journey of adulting is also harsh
your mother might lose her eyesight
your father might lose his teeth
your kindergarten teacher might lose
her memory to no more remember you.
you would lose races, competitions,
exams, friends and lovers
until you find out that when you
cannot save the world
saving yourself is enough.
because you are the only home to your life.
you soul belongs in your ribs
just like mountain peaks belong to the sky.
I am a book of life by Shivaani Dushyanth
I have lived in the rusted coconut of
a jarring afternoon collecting the giggles
Of forlorn tongues, as a stainless steel
Vessel is stumbled inside a kitchen upstairs.
In the midst of yellow badam-halwas
Sliding inside my mouth like an obedient
3 year old, violet sunsets would willingly
Hold the crows so that the tall trees
Would lend them branches for nests.
The still-in-construction streets are a
Mausoleums of dead shopkeepers and
Owner changed business malls,
Claustrophobic marriage halls and
redolent flower stalls, three or four
Stationery shops which were the lifeline
For second-standard kids like me,
Plazas holding the banner of a lollipop
That children could seldom ignore,
A mall devouring the neighbourhood people
At 250 rupees per hour, traffic signals which
Were synonyms to eye-blinking games for
Our small group of kids and the grand sweets,
Dress shops, and footwear stores that were
Embedded in my eyes like apple seeds.
Evening's rules were abided like the constitution
To play police-robber in the broken lifts
That foreshadowed our hearts now,
Parks painted in the mere sweat of apartment
Kids living in a bubble of hope that was
Bursted as the football dented a BMW car.
For my body is a museum of childhood artifacts
Which my adulthood visits every Sunday,
Because the walls of laughter were set
Ablaze with smiles hanging on my lips,
Friends slowly left the evening shadows
And I could see mine alone, and
Somewhere in between shifting houses, I grew up
To be a product of almond icecreams and
One sweet tooth.
The fingernails are still bitten in lazy classrooms,
My hair is still pulled by them in early mornings,
But I have learnt to color the strands
And trim my nails, prioritise my playtime
As a game of survival.
Life changed in shuttle corks flying across
The tenses but the players on both sides remained the same,
Invaders holding college applications are
In my food now and I wish to starve,
Stipends are added in my tea and I spill
It by mistake every day,
The forlorn idea of loneliness holds my
Umbrella on normal days and it's pitch black,
It's over my head all day, recklessness
Peeks by the window and my alarm clock
Scares it away, the badam-halwas
Are on a long vacation for it has borrowed
My summer holidays and left me with
Deadlines in the office, responsibility
Is spelt in newspapers as headlines,
Finances are waiting near my dinner table
But I befriend the pillow the same night.
The birthday cakes with potato chips
Have been replaced with carb diets,
And birthday cards with reception
Invitations.
Mundane Disney channel watching days are shuttered inside
The hall of my previous house because
Memories live in past tense,
And the future is now a recurring guest,
But I am too tired to mind its presence
Because parts of me are sleeping inside
The jigsaw Puzzle of childhood that is in search
Of a missing piece lurking behind my
Reluctant heart because lending
It means my youth is
Complete and over, that's not the desire.
Instead, I scatter the puzzle and
write myself in the ink of nostalgia,
For I am a book of life that has a
New page added every hour,
The old ones remain blue,
And the happy hours torn to rubble
As the jigsaw is started anew.
Untitled Memos to Self by Prashanti Chunduri
The world tells you
you’re an adult
by measuring your growth
by birthdays instead of
how often and loudly you’ve laughed,
how many souvenirs
your adventures have reaped,
how much you’ve grieved,
how hard you’re living.
Instead, between one moment
and the next,
your grubby, young face
littered with dandelion scars,
is now told that
constellations made from acne
spots are simply unacceptable.
You’re now allowed to vote
for those who could so easily
trample on the dreams
you haven’t even birthed yet,
who might tell you
how to love and whom to love,
who will make you
pay for the air
that sinks, leaden,
into your lungs.
You stain your lips
with wine in a juice box,
buy bitterness
before life gifts it to you herself,
and you convince yourself
the adulting is simply
another way to
explain away
the haze of surviving,
like a wine glass shaped
like a ceramic milk mug
and vice versa.
It will take years
before you rediscover
that mango juice straight from the source,
raw, sour-sweet, warm,
trickling down your scabbed wrist
is worth more than
sparkling champagne
bearing the fancy label of adulthood
for the price of your
too-tender stomach lining
that is still used to your
mother’s hands.
(There is a certain satisfaction
in the analogy
that adulting, like alcohol, often
gifts you amnesia instead of armour.)
Adulthood will dare to sharpen
your still-rounded edges,
cut facets into your skin,
in the guise that
something like you,
too soft, too squishy,
with downy feathers in your rib cage,
marshmallows for a soul,
will not be able to
keep pace with the world
(that is choking on itself.)
You grow from
a soft, pink, pliable
mound of clay
into a cracked, creaky, calloused
shingle that sometimes
feel, and is stretched too thin
over skin that retains memories
of its days in the sun.
But twisted trees
reach the skies too,
their skeletal visage will
last through the harshest winters.
So, if you’ve grown up too fast,
worn boxing gloves to protect
your sunflower hands,
smeared yourself
with an inch-thick layer of sunscreen
before the sunshine had a chance
to flirt with your pores
and turn them into golden freckles,
if you’ve cared about
numbers and charts only
when you’re on the weighing machine
rather than wonder at Fibonacci’s Ratio
in pinecones and sea shells,
if you’ve built a tombstone for
the ugly duckling before
it could moult into an endangered species…
If you have become an adult
before the world could
take you by your hand into
a candy shop and let you feast
to your heart’s content,
just remember that
chocolate tastes just as sweet, old,
and flowers look just as beautiful, pressed.
What is adulting anyway if not a poem written haphazardly by Antara Vashistha
Cauliflower has become my mortal enemy,
spinning my spatula around,
I breakdance away from
cumin
sizzling golden
in a frying pan that is older than me.
Every day is a war
in the kitchen, the room, in my words,
this world,
and I am always losing,
Out of place
for all those cookie-cutter molds I once made for myself.
At eighteen, I am still not so expressive
Nineteen, and I am still only 5'2'',
Twenty with my hair still falling,
Twenty-one and still can't bake,
Twenty-two and I still don't drink,
Twenty-three and I still don't have a license,
Twenty-four and I am disenchanted,
Losing battles I don't remember signing up for,
My time gets measured out in
Missing out and missing people.
I think
Adulting is like a Dentist Visit,
You screamed, cried, and threw tantrums
but none worked, so you're here-
speaking in jargon you don't understand yourself,
losing milk teeth which were once necessities,
waiting for your molars
even as you still mispronounce incisors.
You proudly pronounce how frying potatoes is an exercise in patience,
and no one agrees. So you become the
yellow wallpaper from the corner room,
your skin flaking off, with dwindling dimensions,
You feel feeble to the dazzling light of a feed
announcing patents, scholarships, and new jobs for everyone
But you who are still
making poetic proclamations for potatoes.
Feeling lost and without any Robert Frost to turn to,
I become a Side Character in my very sitcom,
Often my mother asks me to follow her footsteps,
but she broke her foot just last month,
so what does she know.
I no longer fit the same clothes, nor labels-
feeling exhausted watching my life pass me by,
tiptoeing through time wondering if I should go to sleep
or tell my people I miss them
but it is 2 AM
and in this unprecedentedly connected world,
the meaning of the word Connection
has evolved into something
I do not connect with.
There is perhaps some comfort in knowing we are all in similar capsules,
just waiting for our dentist.
So I go back to Shakespeare
and the world becomes a stage
and Adulting a Perennial pretence
of being in charge,
of being your own master-
Even if you burned the
cauliflower in the first go,
and put all your eggs in one basket and they all broke,
even if you have to wash
the dishes and start over,
picking up ingredients from new places and spaces,
and making your own metaphors as you go,
What is adulting anyway
if not a poem,
written haphazardly.
Ten Steps To Live Alone by Nirali Patel
1. you will come face to face with all the love you have for your family when your train is about to leave or the gates are about to close. you will feel that love immensely only when it’s on the verge of leaving. that is your curse.
2. it will take about 4043 km to finally have a room of your own. a room in which you can cry without having to worry about someone walking in on you. but then there will be days when you wish that someone would just walk in and ask you what happened.
3. you will no longer have the luxury of a lap to bury your face into or a shoulder to lean on. your father won’t offer to massage your head. your mother won’t wrap you up in a blanket in the middle of the night. you will have to get up but you will choose to lie in the cold on most days.
4. you probably won’t find love in the last row of your lecture hall. you’ll look for it online and even if you run into it, it will come undone before you pay your rent the next month
5. you will hear about friends getting promotions and exes getting married. one of them will even be having a child and you won’t be able to fall apart because adults don’t. they just don’t.
6. you’ll leave your house at 8 for a job that starts at 8 because you’ll forget that you have to cook and clean and do the laundry and get that cardio done too. and when you’re back, your eyes will fall on that bulb that had to be changed. you will have a breakdown by the door and sleep on an empty stomach.
7. you will soon realise that you will feel hungry, but only when you can afford to be.
8. your mother will call you at 9. Exactly then, the distance will feel way more than just 4043 km. you’ll wonder that night how you lost a home in the process of building one of your own.
9. you will succeed in making your rented house a home after six months. but then it wouldn’t be enough. home, you’ll realise, is not a place or even a person. home is that single feeling that manages to cancel out all the hurt inside of you.
10. you will come home one day after a year or so and find that your mother has put all your books away. your shelf holds vases now. you’ll maybe not find your three-year-old t-shirt at the back of your wardrobe. you’ll walk down the street next to your house but wouldn’t be able to find your way back. you’ll forget directions to your favourite ice cream shop. you’ll find it eventually but won’t like the taste anymore. and when you board the flight to go back, you will be left emptier than before. if it’s possible to lose that last bit of yourself, you will. you will mourn it for exactly 4043 km, and then you won’t.
Featured Poems from TTT x PoemsIndia third weekly prompt "Explore the emotional Journey of Adulting"
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