The Portrait of a Poet

White walls of an insomniac
closing in on the cold malice of human
emptiness. I sit alone and wonder-

The only callous of a life lived
is the constant ache,
for even change isn’t constant.
Many nights I have sat on my bed
and emptied the wells of my being
into a stanza or two.
It was static, unchanging
an echoed staccato ringing in my ear.
And the only change I have felt,
– an anchor pulling me backwards –
is the slow breeding of an ache
a human of its own,
sitting in my chest.
and She is a woeful poet,
fondling, superlative. 

She writes stories of upheavals
ones that only I have seen.
She sits behind my breasts and
we navigate-
and suddenly every memory
is a well-rehearsed nighttime routine.
We clamor, we forget
we page the voices in my head
and she gives vocabulary to the excellent,
one-of-a-kind sorrows only I have felt. 

She looks like a shepherd
in Her voice of green;
a pasture of endless testimonies.
People have scribbled onto Her back,
and Her arms, and Her stomach.
She is swollen and scarred,
stuttering in the reluctance of blue.
But her hand moves like a musician
when she truths my untruths.

The gift of a writer is a heavy heart-
we house the strangest Creatures in our bones
and we let Them quake and shatter us
and we hope the mess They create
is a beautiful soliloquy,
an endless ache of being a human
and a knotted burden of penning it down:
we are prisoners of what happens to us.

“rained window”by YU-bin is licensed under CC PDM 1.0

Paakhi Bhatnagar

Paakhi Bhatnagar is a student from India and an avid reader of historical fiction. She is a passionate feminist and blogs about current politics and feminist issues. She also possess the uncanny ability of turning everything into a debate.

Written by 

Paakhi Bhatnagar is a student from India and an avid reader of historical fiction. She is a passionate feminist and blogs about current politics and feminist issues. She also possess the uncanny ability of turning everything into a debate.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *