this phase was sure to run out
the drying up of what everyone thought
was the never ending
fountain of
ever lasting youth.
lighting the lights and kings
that fell into buckets, pitchers from towers
ironed out, flattened, then rolled again.
these poems and stories that i write
smile and cry about right now
will soon just be a phase where i
met an old monk and fell deep
into his romantic clutches;
when i thought i was aromantic
when my mother specifically told me
not to get attached to strange men.
but sometimes the rights seem like
they should be thrown out of the window
the wrongs pushed off cliffs
along with the
don’t know, maybe;
the staple of the confused
those genuine fools
who look down upon the impulsiveness of us idiots
who know we are idiots
unlike the fools
who live by codes and rules
never realising they’re fools
because in the end
they will lead sitcom lives, those family shows
that we all desire and aspire for.
those fools will make it.
us idiots
we’ll sit in our empty apartments
looking for answers at the bottom of bottles
looking for boys at the end of a trail of smoke
with our blood splattered on the white couch.
Poem by Vandana Devi
Artwork by Namrata Nirmal
Article 19 