Swan's Labyrinth

Bleeding Pipe Dreams

Your every word feels like a needle piercing a million holes in my heart,

When you look at me up and down and scrutinize all intricate details to find a flaw,

I stand there with my head hung low and bleak eyes and clenched jaw.

All you want is the best version from me,

When my knees buckle after having walked limply;

I’m squeezing out morsels of all the energy in me,

Until they’re not enough anymore for you.

My blood turns blue,

And the umpteenth drop of blood I shed

For you to collect

Would still sum up to “few”.

Can’t you see the wrinkles on my palms?

Can’t you see the shackles they’re trying to break free

From?

Don’t you remember every time you dismissed my qualms,

And I stayed calm?

For raging would only harm

Me.

Why can’t I be the one you whisper lullabies to at night?

Why can’t we walk on stony paths and trample over the pebbles beneath our feet in lieu of the fights?

Why can’t I jump on your back and you’ll smile in delight?

Why can’t I keep rambling to you about the poems I love to write?

Why can’t you stare at me with affection when I do that, in lieu of your spite?

Why do I still keep dangling on the sharp needles you pelt at me?

Do I mistake them for hope?

Every single time?

Help me, will you? Please?

For the last time,

Clean the wounds on my knees;

I don’t wish to walk limply

Make me heave out the fury within me.

For the very last time.

Please?

~ Riddhi Chakraborty

Notes: This writing aims to illustrate the yearning of the speaker to make peace and reconcile with someone close, who has rather turned into a “critic”, which is more or less baseless and a “pipe dream”. They are being scrutinized and pushed to the limits to pull out all the stops to bring out the best out of them while they keep hanging one every shrewd word, craving for the opposite person’s hand to pull them out of the murk they’re dissolving in…While all of this stays pretty much just a fantasy.

Bitter Perfection

The gleaming rings that adorn her slim fingers,

The earring that dances oh so nimbly like she does;

Grace and agility at their peak,

Even rocks melt when she speaks.

Her dresses, modish and enticing; every eye on her lingers.

She smiles endearingly like a princess but the people call her queen.

She climbs her way to the top discreetly,

And never succeeds to discomfit herself even momentarily.

Her eyes that hold a million constellations in them, embellished with those glasses,

Pull the ground away from our feet as we only gaze like cows as time passes.

And oh the way she holds him so close,

As though she might lose her favourite jewellery,

To someone better, maybe me?

Only if she knew, only if…

How I sat and watched her wrench everything I dreamt to embrace, cherish, feel and obtain.

How she replaced me like after the storm does the calm rain.

How she managed to become a better version of me; the best one I must say-

Flawless, impeccable, totally beyond compare.

And oh how she wounded my naive heart After she took him away,

But who could blame her? After all, she is a piece of art.

Oh but,

As I maunder through my rainy days,

Past her pretty face,

I discern something obscured inside of her,

Something rather dark.

Not evil or vile.

But affliction.

Something that my agony,

Not my envy

Could recognize.

Maybe she is not all just pretty and fancy,

Maybe her life’s not all just joy aplenty,

Maybe her heart is not as light as a whisper, unburdened and free,

Maybe she is somewhere broken too,

Like me…

~ Riddhi Chakraborty

Notes: Even the finest of people can have nasty scars.

Sweet 2021

Sweet 2021,

You presented to me a shooting star. Glinting, blinding, brisk and swift. Then, withdrew it, conspiring to save it for later.

You gave me, at your onset, sunshine and rainbows, flowers and flamingos, poetry and flourishing meadows. Then, in one swish wiped it all away, at your end, with floods and droughts, hurricanes and volcanoes. Traitor.

You swept the dirt off my feet. Freed my burdened shoulders. Then, laddened me with sacks of chores, arduous, bulkier and greater.

Be that as it may,

As you beckon your heir apparent to follow up,

Alongside your rainy days, fallouts and fiascoes,

You enlightened me. Lit my waning flame of creativity and insight. Turned my follies into lessons, insecurities into accomplishments.

You showed me the strenuous and fatiguing facets of a day and urged me to battle my way through. Taught me that no form of entreaties would ever persuade them to relent.

You made me wail in pain, pine for love, envy the fortunate, regret my words. But, all said and done, you made me cherish what I had, smile at my little triumphs, laugh at my own jokes, and look back at the bygone day with content.

And so,

As you beckon your heir apparent to follow up,

I hope again, for a healthier year for the unhealthy.

A lovelier year for the unloved.

A stronger year for the weaker.

A welcoming year for the snubbed.

A better year for all of us.

~ Riddhi Chakraborty

Notes: A letter to the year gone by.

Memory Lane

The chilly, frigid evenings roll in one after another as I gawk out of the window with droopy eyes.

Guffaws of pretentious men and women permeate in living rooms- chatting away, neglecting the presence of one.

Waking up to grating, irksome alarms with a vacant, poignant space beside me and a home ample of people but still undone.

Chirpy dinners on the dining table, seemingly invigorating my spirit but the chair next to mine diffuses lonely laments all around.

Trips to one and the same place devoid of the clicks and shutters of your camera and your smile outshining the early morning sun.

Here I am installing you in poems like a restless, peppy kid.

But do you still think of me? How I gazed at your smile and grinned?

You’re a bird flying away, free and unfettered with lovely folks.

Happier than ever, channeling self-morale and growth.

A tiny screen reflects your face like you’re the prettiest creature on the planet.

While I reminisce all night of fleeting as well as heartfelt moments of you and I, I wonder if you have them saved too in obscured cassettes?

How we squeezed each other’s palms knowing we’re falling to pieces softly like a house of cards?

How we looked into each other’s eyes and said so many things words would otherwise pierce our souls like shards?

How we smiled and shared our secrets that others would disregard?

Hey soul sister,

Do you still think of me? How I engulfed you like a winter blanket when others would only discard?

~ Riddhi Chakraborty

Notes: This is about my sister.

A Goodbye Before A Hello

Your bronzite eyes glisten with tears.

Your heart was a rose petal and I ripped it,

And you wonder how the puzzle pieces don’t fit,

Because now all you can apprehend are the world’s brutal jeers.

You force smiles and laughter,

Lie on your bed like a crumpled ball of paper,

Frail and maimed as your world collapsed and your hopes turned into a blurry vapor.

What a lovely ending (of the story of your life) to your most prominent chapter!

No! You are not one to be belittled.

You’re worth things streets ahead than mine.

I am a heap of disgrace while you are a sun-kissed sea shore dappled with diamonds that shine.

You are not redundant. You are so further away from that. I just won’t ever be able to spit the truth. I may flash a smile but your heart will stay just as brittle.

The butterflies in fact are a blight on you.

A slice of my heart is in fact going to put a blight on you,

And my rhymes won’t ever fit in your poems as you would want them to.

We were meant to drift apart with eyes glistening like the flowers in the early-morning dew.

The world’s inkier than you think.

A moment with you would be shoddier than a forever without you.

We’re better off pretzeled into fathomless knots until we can live again, fresh and anew,

Whilst covertly pining for each other and crying our hearts out till they shrink.

~ Riddhi Chakraborty

Notes: This is a sequel to How Your Heart Raptured Mine from the opposite perspective.

How Your Heart Raptured Mine

Your emerald eyes absorb me till I run as xeric as autumn.

I cherish your presence more than mine,

It’s more than just magical and divine.

Hard to believe you’re true, or is it, haunting me from my past, a phantom?

Not a single exchange of colloquy. Not even one in brevity.

But on the spur of the moment, your heart touches mine.

And you become the poem to my rhyme.

This is insanity. Yes, it is. And certainly, to my felicity, it has no remedy.

Gradually, my world rotates around your axis,

It’s terrifying how your absence deteriorates me.

The world stops spinning and the slumbering trepidation in my head starts running free,

And I ascertain your worth. How my sub-conscious made you, of the story of my life, the most crucial passus.

It’s funny how, with a fleeting glimpse of you, my heart stumbles into a yonder,

One that’s so ethereal that my heart shrivels and waits for yours to heal it,

Though to you I am a random, redundant soul with helter-skelter and incorrigible habits, too abject to deal with.

But is it too much to ask for, when I only ask for a petite slice of your heart and hinder mine from turning somber?

I wonder, how might it feel to have your hand in mine?

Would it be cruel to envision that? Would it be incongruous to discreetly track you down?

I let the curiosity gain control of me until I become fragile. But the fragility feels beautiful for I wear the visions of you and I like a crown.

But, could it really happen? You and I? Will I ever be able to steal your heart just like you did mine?

~ Riddhi Chakraborty

Notes: It’s about the dazedness one dissolves into once the visions of them and their “love interest” cloud their mind.

As Sinful As You

They say,

Your heart is as pure as your intentions.

Your words are a warm hug with no skin-ship.

Everybody wants to be loved. Loved by you. Though there are repercussions.

They say you are Venus in human form but, little do they know what you obscure behind your tight lips.

I know what you can do. I know who you are and what you want.

I know what you do behind closed doors. I know the significance behind your gloomy silence.

I know why and I know how you are what you are but, like I was before, I will be nonchalant.

For I am just like you. I am as ravenous and thirsty as you are and I admire your connivance.

You like beguiling them with the piercing gaze of your hypnotic eyes.

So do I.

You like inducing them to saunter past your snare that’s in disguise.

So do I.

You like callously watching them beg for mercy and wail in pain and wait for their demise.

So do I.

You like watching the blood ooze out of their skin, and drinking it to fill your void till your thirst dies.

So do I.

I admire your incessant blood-lust. I admire how you defy basic ethics.

I admire your deception and incorrigibility.

Albeit your deeds are beyond the pale- so I have heard from my bloodline of clerics,

Your malevolence inspires me. I want to be like you. I want to besmirch, ravage, massacre and vanquish until I extinguish civility.

~ Riddhi Chakraborty

Notes: I don’t really like this one.

Not Anymore

Lost in a reverie, never to return.

A starry night but, gloomy too.

A pen clutched in my palm, my chin on the other and, the words don’t flow.

I imagine, devise, and trust but, the words don’t connect.

I tousle my hair in frustration, my mind pushes and pushes and pushes itself to its limit and goes all out to broaden my horizon but, I don’t feel any impulse.

I waited for a miracle to supervene somehow. After all, miracles do happen.

Time flies by, so do the birds in the sky, and the people walk past their inner conflicts, unperturbed and fine.

I stay rooted to my chair, my feet tapping involuntarily, my scope of patience dwindling, and suddenly I feel unhinged.

My heart doesn’t feel the felicity it once did.

My passion deluges itself in the lake of apathy.

My spirit that once jumped with glee, lies morose and broken.

I almost feel maimed. Hollow. Empty.

Despite that, I reassured, “It’ll pass. You’re brilliant. You’re doing great enough. You’re gonna get through this. You’re one in a million.”

Nonetheless, despite how much ever I pull out all the stops to incentivize myself, my cluttered conscience says otherwise.

Why doesn’t my heart beat at full tilt anymore?

Why has my only source of joy taken a toll?

Why don’t my instincts play their part in my life anymore?

Why? Why? Why?

A faint, mellow but dejected voice rings in my ears in my reverie, “Maybe you don’t love me anymore.”

And then I pen down the dreadful scenario and let all the words the reverie presented to me, pour.

~ Riddhi Chakraborty

Notes: Falling out of love with your passion, in this case- Writing. Plot twist at the end.

The Voice Of Music

I cascade down like a river into their ears,

The words that I speak, the rhythm that bounds them together,

Fills their minds, souls and hearts with euphony and wells up their eyes with sweet or sour tears.

Perilous may it seem; I can either heal or rack one with guilt and make their minds go hither and thither.

Glorified, I have been for years on end,

Ever so beautiful and magical I still am, invariably imbuing mixed emotions in them,

Sometimes adored, sometimes loathed. One might criticize, another might commend,

But, ever so beautiful and magical I still will be and invariably imbue mixed emotions in them.

Yes, my glory will persist for the long haul,

But, like so many of you, with time I will change too.

To one I might averse, another I might enthrall,

Don’t you, however, have factious quarrels over me. Every configuration of me has its own value.

Therapeutic sure I am. Imagine living without me.

Will you not need me at times when you come home feeling weary and frantic?

Will you not need me when, from the indignation and misery, you want to be free?

Think again. One day if I am gone forever will you not, even for a second, panic?

I am a myriad of invisible colours.

Colours that have magic in them; they either paint you blue or pink.

You either crouch down and cry tears of rue or frolic around, unbothered about the thoughts of others.

Think again, will you? Underestimate, disdain or try to replace me, and one day I will disappear before you even blink.

~ Riddhi Chakraborty

Notes: This was inspired by Alfred Lord Tennyson’s ‘The Brook’ following it’s use of extended metaphor.

From The Dumps To Cloud Nine

The dusk begins once the buoyant, idyllic hours of the morning are over,

As a whirlpool of apprehension devours us whole for the morrow.

The aurora begins once the saudade, pensive hours of the night get their final closure,

No more ghastly delusions where we’re wallowing in our sorrow.

The beam of light paves its way to fill our hearts with joy again,

The long, solemn pages of grief in our stories are signing off.

Our barren hearts once running pungent due to consistent pumps of pain

Are sturdy and wholesome as the dewy petrichor evokes the elation we once lost to the devil’s scoff.

The slow, scalding periods of anguish,

The anguish that we forced ourselves to abide by and not speak about,

Shall die as our zest takes charge and do so great a deed, as to make it relinquish,

The smiles we show feel finally real and our timid mouths finally scream and shout.

This feeling that obscures our bountiful memories of affliction and horror,

We savor till it reaches every bit of us and we know we could dedicate thousands of written pages to it.

As the invisible butterflies and fairies swirl around us, giving us warmth, we look in the mirror,

And see the reflection we always aimed of seeing- contentment and peace at it’s finest. Our smiles real and our eyes lit.

~ Riddhi Chakraborty

Notes: This one is rather old.