Curves, a poem…

Listen, Love

Someday, a bright red pain
A red unlike any you’ve worn
May come searing through your heart
And sit inside you
Stunning the senses
Replacing your freedom to be.

I hope not, but I do, but I hope not
But that day
No matter what fairytales I tell you
I won’t be able to hush it away
Like I did your bruises and tears
The fevers and fogs all these years.

So, you need to know
I’ll be right outside the door
That we both shall build between us:
You, to be alone with your self
Me, to push you to it
And wait.

Learning has curves for a reason, my love
Once, we learn to let go for our own sake
Then, spiralling up, for the other’s.
So we’re freed, spiral by spiral
Alone but together, together but alone.

Three Things

Breaking…Through (Rakhi Varma, 2021)

Some things are not meant
To be written down
But to be lit like lamps
In the room of the Soul
Where, alone, you go, sit
And cry tears of relief
At this gentle meeting
That comes like unexpected acceptance
From the one you loved so long.

Some knowing does not arrive on
Stallions of thunder
You might have imagined it
Like hers, or his, or like the legends
Of the so many Buddhas
But it also comes as if a single whisper rising
At the end of a great storm
Just to say, “Come”.

Some wars are not so that
You may win, or try to, or even lose…
They are meant for surrender…
When Draupadi raised her arms
Above all that could shame her
She went beyond shame
Forever.