The Fall

I stared down the blackness, my feelings a mixture of queasiness and exultation. The void seemed almost impenetrable, as if it were a veil, a barrier instead of empty space. The breeze blew past ever so slightly, brushing my cheeks like the tender hands of a lover... a lover.
The moon was at its full, shining benignly down at the scene, casting shadows wherever the trees behind me cut through its light. The faint smell of wet mud hung in the air, stirring up memories of childhood. Everything looked beautiful, breathtaking, as if in mockery of my plight. An excellent place to die.

Song of the Faithful

I just met a non-believer,
Ah, the same old tiff again.
It has dragged on for decades and centuries,
Not a suitable place for the sane.

What has religion given us,
but war and blood, you say?
We'd all be machines with gears gone awry,
if it weren't for the beliefs that still hold sway.

The Lark

When I was a child, I was friends with a lark. It was no ordinary bird, for it could talk. And by talk, I mean human speech. This isn't one of those stories where in the end, the narrator turns out to be an animal or some inanimate object.

I was speaking about the lark, yes.

A Waking Dream

Who dwells in my waking dreams, my sleeping thoughts, The nights asked with a troubled sigh. The words fumbled to speak of her Who haunts the shadows where my demons lie. Where do I begin? Of those eyes should I confide? Seemingly fathomless and churning. Where anchors flounder and storms take flight.

Keep the flame alive

You're an ignorant child who has yet to see the myriads of trouble and dismay that life has to offer. You live protected behind a veil of happy and gaily songs, woven with trifles that have your highest priority. Where the hardest thing is getting rejected by your crush and breaking up with your love of adolescence... where you cry when others fail to wish you a happy birthday.
You are a child of spring with sweet coying flowers that bloom anew everyday, where the night's dark is kept at bay by ever-twinkling stars and the soft moonlight. You haven't experienced the cold, biting frost that gnaws on men's hope and souls. Savour the joy of innocence while your ignorance lasts. It is said that ignorance is bliss. I would never know if that is true. But you would. 
When the icy claws of the monsters under the bed grab for you, only then will you realize that monsters don't exist, but humans do. And that is a terror of a different kind; the kind that makes you rear with its justice, that disgusts you with its mercy, that makes you shiver with its touch of compassion. 
You may have read many inspiring sayings, even jotted down a few in that little diary by your bed-side stand. Hear this one. 
You are alone, surrounded by chattering wisps of people who are too engrossed in their lives to pay you any mind. They'll chatter away happily when the dark creeps forward. Many will flee when the shadow so much as falls upon them. A few will remain beside you, but swaying like the flame of a candle in the breeze. When the dark grows strong, when your own shadow abandons you, they'll flicker and scatter away, too. You will be distraught, your heart will shatter. And this is when it all matters. You won't remember those motivating quotes then. It'll just be you. And when you hold yourself together in that darkness, when you keep the flame alive, that's when you'll come into your own. When you'll finally know yourself. 
The winds will blow, relentless. The dark will engulf you, ruthless in its mercy. 
The trick is to keep the flame alive...

Conflict

It hounds me day and night,
the damned question that wears me dry.
There is no mercy and no respite,
from this conflict of...
Who am I?

Poems.

I wrote these poems in school, for the class assembly. Extremely unprofessional poems, but had to post something here.

Just my luck.

     The college looked amazing, freshly bathed in yesterday's showers. That was the good part. The bad part: The ground was a mess of wet and squishy mud. Taking a deep breath, I entered the gate...

... And promptly stumbled on my own shoe lace. My arms stretched out to break the fall. A gaggle of girls behind me sniggered. So much for my first memorable moment of college.

Heat.

         Summer in India is harsh, and overwhelming. First of all, it comes before its time. You wake up one morning finding your shirt sticking to you and the pillow wet.

A gloomy morning

    "Wake up, doofus! C'mon, get freshed up," the croaky voice of Anna startled him from a peaceful, dreamless sleep.

       "Just a little more..." he said, turning on his side.

       " No time. It's our shift today. And saheb will get pissed off if we don't finish in time. Come to think of it, he is always in a foul mood. That big..." Anna started his usual rant against the saheb, again. Prakash jumped down the bunk and stretched. Purple light filtered through the moth-eaten curtain.