My guilt is ready

My guilt is coiled up inside me. 
Like a cobra
ready to pounce.

Like a dormant volcano
ready to explode. 

Like a saw 
that cuts through your hand;
accidentally. . 

Not mine. Not ever again

One

My words are not my words
anymore.
I give them up.
I can't claim them to be mine
MINE, MINE, MINE.

Were my words ever enough?
My words. 
I remove the prefix now.
Words.

Words flow...
like a river?
Why did I think of a river?
Is there no other analogy?

My words used to be mine.
Never touching brilliance
Mediocrity
Reminding me everyday.

I see brilliance around me;
knowing that I cannot even
touch it.

I scared of revealing
all that I feel. 

I scared of dark thoughts.

I give up my claim.

No longer mine.
Just words. 
~Anjee, Nov 2013

This is the first poem I wrote in my series Mid Carnival of Woe. I wrote the series within a day or two. Eight poems in two nights to be precise. 

Shriveled

Two

Here I am;
tattered,
shriveled.
Plank by plank;
cell by cell;
speck by speck;
bared. 

There was no
madness to my method
I made that up.

But it was never a mask.

At another place,
in another time
verse still swims
in my mind. 

~ Anjee, November 2013

The 2nd poem in my series Mid Carnival of Woe. 

P.S : Sometimes I miss Nov 2013, It was a very different time...

Pricked

FOUR

You're like a paper cut
you make me bleed.
At first it was hardly there.
I didn't even notice it.

And then I realised
I was pricking myself
on paper.

I have bruises
I don't remember getting.

You hurt me
slowly
it's like water dripping down
a leaking tap. 

It hardly makes a sound
and you forget about it.
And when you do notice
you feel like you'll drown.

I didn't notice
the blood at first.

It was only when; after
hundreds of cuts
the blood stained my white shirt;
I noticed my red finger,
my now red hand. 

And I remembered 
all those times 
you hurt me;
unnoticed. 

And it pains now. 

~Anjee, Nov 2013

This is the fourth poem in my series of melancholy poems Mid Carnival of Woe. 

Despair

Like getting ready and going out and getting drenched in sudden rain.
And all your hair undone and all your make up; washed out.

Like those untruths which started out as a joke but the words flowed and it became
a bag full of lies which could not be thrown in a trash can. 

Like not knowing where you stand. Do you stand, at all?
Are you falling? Have you fallen? Will you be getting up soon?

Like standing outside a clinic and realising that 
you really want the baby but can't keep it.

Like crying yourself to sleep and getting up in the morning 
even though it's easier to sleep. And maybe even easier to reach out for those pills.

Like not knowing and all the thinking and wondering
killing you slowly and not being able to stop.

Like drilling holes in an already wounded heart
and somehow accepting the pain.

Like drowning in three feet water, it seems impossible
but it can happen and you don't even think of it.

Like not stopping, like not knowing if you can
and going around in circles looking for answers for questions never asked


Like shedding silent tears because you're mediocre 
instead of brilliant; like knowing you have no right to cry.

~Anjee, Nov 2013


This poem is part of my series Mid Carnival of woe