An Ode to Plath
"I know pretty much what I like and dislike but please don't ask me who I am."
“So, tell me about yourself.”
Eyes calculative, slip into the sea of resumes;
others trailing; I drown.
“I'm hardworking,” I say.
Papers cradle hopes of tasting galaxies, fading,
gripped firmly with forced smiles
to flee the void—
the judgment of achievement.
“I'm imaginative”
I envision chandeliers
hanging on sky-bound paper hooks,
crystal clear for Maenad’s visible rage.
“I'm…”
Lies, and some more lies,
Truth packs bags, anger filling every corner,
this city now resides in its memory.
Midway, I falter, remembering Ma’s words—
“Some things are known through others”
"Someone, somewhere, can you understand me a little, love me a little?"
"All my life my heart has yearned for something I cannot name"
I want to be a child's vision—
two triangles, bridged by a semicircle,
and two curvy lines on a quest,
my aim, to be an easier person,
or perhaps, pinky promise-coated words
carve a corner in the gospels.
I want to be my grandmother's smile,
fighting plague with pickle jars,
my aim, to protect word-wrapped people
from unskilled weavers,
or perhaps, myself,
from sellers butchering the non-priced— dreams,
for capitalists to fulfil theirs.
I want…
words, and some more words,
until I am their manifestation,
and my limited jargon meets extinction.
"Perhaps that's why I want to be everyone— so no one can blame me for being I."
"Why can't I try on different lives, like dresses, to see which one fits best?"
Tick, tick tick, one list down,
broken clock jumps in three hours—
running out of time, I feel, but actually myself.
Maybe I was meant to be the girl
you'd look at like gods looked at Aphrodite—
her wind and rain-kissed anklets, jhumkas,
whispering poetry— you're now a literature lover.
Maybe I was meant to be that
heart-shaped-universe-eyed child
birthed from mothers' prayers,
their children slaughtered
between the utterance of ‘ম’/‘म’ and ‘আ’/ ‘आ’.
Maybe I…
wants, and some more wants,
for amidst wars, droughts, and famines
that is what kept humankind alive.
"I am a victim of introspection."
.
"There is a certain clinical satisfaction in seeing just how bad things can get."
Brush dipped in blues, greens and pinks,
canvas bleeds a red city,
a home built— art saved from waste,
a hunt for the worst, since worse unidentified.
Unfilled suicide note utilised,
red ink drawn from knife-drawn lines on the skin,
love forged from sorrow’s essence—
stealing hues from a pining sunset,
using flowers abandoned by mourners,
a dry drop of love beneath my tongue,
struggling to utter ‘v’ in love,
and sprinkling will left
to discard the measuring oven and head
bolstered by the love of one man,
whose eyes stumble over paralyzed words,
so I ask for the last help—
find me the measuring tape.
I…
I think, and think some more,
unless thinking and hurting blur.
.
Deep breaths dissolve into fog-laden cityscapes,
I drift weightless in water's embrace,
sin-stinking hands offer help to realize
love too bears a cost and selling price—
both have grown cheaper, I a little more.
Thirty missed summer picnics and monsoon romances,
love, a nomad, returns with marriage dreams,
rejection labels me a pessimist,
for "I'm in love with my sadness."
No doors and windows in my head,
the carpenter fired,
local voices bathe with shame.
No best or better to counter my worst
but perhaps, a good, could eclipse all,
so I begin to wonder,
"Is there no way out of the mind?"
Homesick
Every day when I call my mother
she tells me of new home decor—
lanterns, lighting corners,
she sneaked in to cut off electricity.
windchimes, soothing, yet crashing
like waves on desolate shores of despair.
She says time is an upset child,
denied a toy, it puffs cheeks with lonely air,
while sadness, a sailor,
rows its boat in river eyes.
The child sits in the middle of the road,
lifting eyes to check its acting
although the clocks keep ticking.
.
She tells me baba weaves a love poem—
his eyes, stressed by numbers,
in cakes and bills,
now home to rapid weather cycles—
summers begin as he sweats over
preparing the school-going kid named, call,
trace down kms to wake up its senior,
immediately after which spring breaks in,
as he recollects memories of me to Ma,
before an artist’s palette spills on a canvas
burdened with humanity's grief,
to lessen which the clouds deliver
fresh copies of dusty unsaid novels,
protecting them from the August rains.
Baba, captures their hard work
transfers it through WhatsApp with a note,
"surrounded by colors, yet they seem dull".
Winter freezes the internet
information running as a warning
so people cover themselves
with warmth
from pictures, videos and call records.
She tells me his palm lines,
once young as popsicle-licking children
climbing trees on summer days,
that were once soil for sunflowers,
are now an invaded land,
marked by flags of wrinkles,
yet he makes paper planes out of prescriptions
and holy scriptures from recipes
to cook his daughter’s favorite dish.
However, when the last conversation arrives
it runs in commas stripped off their curves,
no longer commas, nor full stops,
but teens seeking purpose.
Ma tries to drive the kid to a wrong home,
while I hide behind the screen—
knowing the map
yet selfishly depriving a comma
of its identity,
of its long-distance lover,
of a chance to change
it might be manifesting for so long.
Unlike Ma, I don't understand punctuation well,
but excuses.
I pull off work and a full stop
like a dagger
through the evaporating screaming silence
even denying it a funeral,
but her words still ring in my ears,
"Kire, bari kobe phirbi tui?"
(When will you return home?)
When dreams of sipping chai in Manali shatter
by baba's demand for adrak wali chai,
you'll wake with complains
wrapped like candies
no one to offer—
Baba has sugar,
and you don't like sweets.
You stare at the sofa
telling yourself emptiness is a good artist,
while complaints sneak behind
like your little monster fleeing vegetables.
Soon you realize
emptiness is still the kid
drawing suns between hills
rivers flowing,
two small diagonal lines
meeting at one small straight line— a bird.
Soon you'll realize
your little monster returns,
momos in one hand,
complaints of being forgotten
appoints the other.
Among laughter and lecture
she'll spill sauce onto sofa
tracing your feet back
not to promises of dishes you'd cook
but to your scolding
that drives all the nomadic,
anger-driven
home ditcher parts of her soul
back home.
And when the rain returns
And when the rain returns
let us take shelter
in lines
of empires consumed by dust and spiderwebs.
And when the rain returns
let us carve poetries at cafes
out of how all my earrings are letters
reaching the same address
confusing the reader where to start from
so you become the guide.
Or out of your terrible art of pretense
hiding behind meetings
Search history revealing
you've been learning my favorite recipes.
And when the rain returns
let us make paper boats out of love,
paint them with anger and unsaid
before setting them free
and watch them become colorless,
yet looking more beautiful than before.
And when the rain returns
let us dance to my playlist,
with hands entwined
like roads meeting
eyes locked as if in a crowded street
buzzing with loneliness
two people silently build a home
in the chaos,
out of silence.
The app plays my mother tongue,
a language you don't understand
yet you don't change it,
because love is also a language.
It lacks consonants and vowels,
but is made of acts,
no language can explain.
After all, for ages, when speech failed humanity
it is love that saved them,
else the world would be a funeral ground,
mourning stories
whose punctuations hanged themselves.
Mrittika Chatterjee is a recent master's graduate in English and Comparative Literature from Pondicherry University. Driven by an unyielding passion for literature, Mrittika intends to pursue a PhD. She envisions a future as both an assistant professor and a poet.