Stampede

A murmur, a glance in the dark
A fire far away, ten thousand miles away
Through naked eyes, a burn of white
Stamped and stomped on unblinking eyes
A desire to run where the mind runs
Pockets and corners of forgotten past.
Each moment is endless-
A circular sky and a point of ocean.
Watching at the end of cliffs
I see fire breathing on rocks
They stare at me with their naked lies
Of happiness, safety, security
And love from a future that is yet untouched.
I was in control of the direction
Footsteps in lines that were parallel and clean.
Now it’s a stampede of misgivings
Stamped and stomped on my unblinking eyes.
Planets with lives hide in plain sight
Any life apart from this human life.
Conscious is a disease of the mind.
•
~insight07
•
Copyright ©Devika Todi. All rights reserved.

Classifieds

Cities are spinning out of control
Buildings of wood, of bricks
Buildings made of newspapers
Windows of classified ads stacked together
Are falling down.

I shuffle cards to play by myself
A game of fortune, stories
Signs.

A light shines bright
New start. New day
New memory waiting to enter my world.

I have dreamt of days
For days.
Butter on bread as plates and glasses crack in tall buildings
Tea spills and minds are awake.

A newspaper is spread with truths of the day.
Each day a memory I have folded away.

Comb in hands, mirrors in minds.
We use lifts to navigate vertical lengths.
Maybe once in a while,
I will learn how to fly.

Through latitudes and longitudes
To a place where light is born.
And it flows, watery between my fingers.

~insight07

•
Copyright ©Devika Todi. All rights reserved.

Dog Years

It’s been a slow unraveling.
First few months, I noticed ants and the trees infront of my house
I don’t know their type. So I gave them names.
My evening tea was dedicated to them.
Then my blue screen started calling me all the time.
Slowly I became a slave to a regime old enough
To burden generations of my family.
The skin around my nails became rough with my irritation
Their marks on my hands were a common occurrence.
In between meetings in my boredom I often drew my new friends on my knees and ankles
Flowers of colour with a blue pen.
My sister came back and with her came life I was missing in me.
Nearing the wall, I made space for her once again in our room.
Soon, it lost all character as just mine.
Frames and candles were replaced with common products- perfume, skin lotion, and a pouch full of secret stuff that marked an individual life.
Sickness and the tightening of death around us introduced a new being into her life, my life
Anxiety became a daily term, far more abused than my own feelings that sat still in some corner of my chest.
Slowly, months spread like sand under the sea.
Suddenly I did not miss having a sky to me.
I was okay with two walls to my name.
Blue screens became home in a way my own mind was not.
Spurred by medicine and science, a better day stepped into our lives. A dream of a dream.
A thought of another nation, other existence pricked our intuition
It would soon be time to move.
After days and weeks of deliberation, it is almost here.
But make no mistake, my life is the same.
The life that I claim as the energy in mine is making the move.
Like a shell, I exist in the remembrance of these walls.
Did I imagine these past few months spent in the glow
In the flow of a warm yellow light that is going away, one at a time?
Or was this existence real, spending dog years in a human life-
Sixteen months stretched to eat emotions and identity, in a slow bite
A sharp canine at a time, one at a time.
•
~insight07
•
Copyright ©Devika Todi. All rights reserved.

Shiver

•
In this punishing cold
I warm up to the idea of you-
A red scarf on my head
A breath of mist on my lips.
It is this same breath
I take in, I give out
To keep the shivers within
My trembling spine.
I see human crowds huddled
A warmth to the overexposed ground.
Rain falls and falls-
My scarf becomes me, my skin
I become the one
Listening to not just humans
But nature converse in its own literature-
A storm, a festival, a celebration.
Later in the night,
When I am warm from amber
I feel your eyes
And I warm further-
Somewhere in crowds
Somewhere in a strange city-
I accepted the idea
Of me belonging with different people
And different people belonging with me.
A bonfire and a wind
A scarf and some red
In pink lanes
Of literature, speakers, orange flowers
And homely strange people.
•
~insight07
•
Copyright ©Devika Todi. All rights reserved.