In another life, happiness coats my tongue with its aftertaste by Jijnyasa Patowary
dear god,
i think i met you for a few minutes last night. the guests were gone and i saw my mother take a bowl of kheer and play her favorite show on the tv. what is it about mothers and the sad singularity of things they do for themselves? but i saw her laugh for the longest time and wipe some milk off her chin. i hope you don’t deny me, but there must be another life where happiness isn’t fleeting and leaves a trail of all its glory. my mother has been living in pockets of brief heaven - stealing moments in solitary, sieving seconds from hours. as if her time belongs to everyone else but her. her shoulders are heavy from carrying my father’s anger. her hands weak from holding onto me.
i want to leave, you see, i refuse to become a disclaimer for a collapsing family. but i saw her laugh for the longest time so there must exist a parallel world where she walks on wet grass like she did when she was 16. she doesn’t run back inside to heal a broken home - but lets her broken heel turn itself near the jamun trees. please don’t deny me; in another life, happiness coats my tongue pink with its aftertaste. which is to say somewhere i am my mother’s daughter and i leave easter eggs in the backyard only for me. i oil her hair and she paints my nails. my father puts a blanket over us when we sleep. in another life, my mother looks at me build a home of my own and is proud that pain isn’t her only legacy. i let her look at me because in another life, my mother doesn’t see a mirror, but a face inherited from her mother. we hold our ice cream cones tenderly and let them melt all over our jutis. i beg of you to not deny me, in another life, i get to see my father soften under the sun and we water the garden roses together. my mother plants a few more jamun trees.
in another life, i am not afraid of my home. i am not afraid to stay. so, i stay. i do.
lovingly and in despair,
j.
Heaven isn't heaven unless I can comfortably break down here by Antara Vashistha
The sizzling sprinkle
of a hot shower,
spelling the words
P A N D E M O N I U M,
the foggy curtain
on the bathroom mirror,
the twenty-three tiles
zig-zagging their way
through the
wall,
counting seconds by the drop,
imagining walls are
soundproof,
muffling screams in the
T-Shirt you wore yesterday,
shower drains clogged from
golden hair and thoughts
too illegible
to put down on words.
My evening shower
is a fleeting release,
my eyes close down to
the sound of trickling water,
If I am quiet enough,
I cannot hear my father yell anymore.
Few more minutes,
and I will once again
be ready
to confront my mother's silence,
slowly the fingers turn
the knob,
coolness seeping through
once scalding water,
The blue plastic throne
beckons me to sink
down
whereas
I take
this as a
Perfect sign
to collapse
in my naked vulnerability.
Heaven isn't heaven
unless I can
comfortably break down
here.
Seven minutes have passed
and soon the
water drips with tenuous guilt,
a reminder (that)
the family bathroom
on the ground floor
cannot be
your brief heaven.
The doors are only wood,
they will break-
the switch to the bulb is
outside-
you do not control if
the light gets in here-
nor darkness-
but the latter will bottle up
and stay-
remember,
the bulb is not connected to the inverter,
and there are
much too power cuts
in the summer,
and soon it will be
eight,
not autumn,
so it is time
to dab your face
against the softer towel,
few more minutes to
calm the eyes
sniff
the last whiff
of your coffee-flavored
body wash,
by the way,
you're running out of
Dettol,
and breathe
the succeeding seconds-
Try to keep
this quiet close
in your mind,
now unlock,
walk,
and don't forget
to switch
the geyser on
on your way out.
Who knows if heaven and happiness share the same lifespan by Mohua Chakraborty
Faith is a traditional conceit
consuming the feet of
blushing demons
the hands that grow in solitude
don't contaminate sins
they seek death suspended
in the horizon
while apples turn into
cannibals of parental sobs
Reading is a fine invention
a travelling sport inside
a constricted phantom
as if cages smell of freedom
and every bird is sick of it
we summon gods like neighbours
with mouths dry washed
in washing machines
while miniature cooking rituals
are attached to them using safety pins
gods are likely to wander
in vegan spaceships
that crash landed in
those cages and we
assumed brief heavens
could be entrapped
like dead women submerged
in masculine mirth
for how long will those hands
bath in alcoholic cough syrups
before squeezing singular maternity
from the right portion of my left lung
though god is everywhere
aren't discovery channels closing soon?
My faith is a synonym
for the event of
silencing immortal sins
you say, solitude can be the
language between my legs
but silence is the paralysed
output of unsettled rage
it seems submissive prayers
are no more audible
rubbing the backs of all the
languages that left for gehenna
for who knows if heaven and
happiness share the same lifespan
and I wonder if gods
born on the same day
receive the same amount
of pained hearts.
Stifled Ballads by Shivaani Dushyanth
Stifled ballads sung in
The feets of men born
To the lamp-post of the
Village that flickers when
Women are with pens
And is dim when they read,
The world shines when they
Sleep for only then, they
Are allowed to dream.
This road of anarchy swipes
Solitude in potholes and
Sewage tanks cleanse purity
When they lift their sarees
To cover their foreheads,
It's a dirty way to perform
Rituals of superiority, for their
Freedom is more ugly than
Roadside slush.
When, Kitchen cloths scrub their
Posthumous grease on
Decayed palms to realise
That every filth is blamed
On their future to slam
Vegetables inside their tongues,
They grieve in rotten smells,
And cut the same to serve food,
Speech severed, a voice muted.
But when they pray on their knees
God sweeps the floor beneath
because faith is their
Key and locks are hung
Behind the temples,
No man can pluck their hair
When devotion is stuck to
Their heads as the moment
Of brief heaven can never be
Stolen from them women.
They avail freedom in
Midnight rains of glorious
Beaches which is the
Metaphor of their storm
That creeps into hearts,
They sit and stare at the sea
Of burden like lost children,
Who give and empty their love.
So the next time the
Railway stations call out
Numbers they will raise
Axes and chop the speakers
And replace it with their
Tongues, so that everybody
Can hear their agony laced
In coffe dust, to be a a void
Then try to become vacuum.