Goodbye, Chalazion
Like a shipload of memories dredged up under my eye,
you hung in there with your full-moon audacity.
Growing up with me for a decade,
you saw me bloom into this wilderness.
You watched me make love to monotony.
You must have surely ingrained the sights my eye feasted upon!
Perhaps, you’d have spied on every word I wrote,
every wail that emanated from the deepest trench of my heart.
Every ache, every dance of joy was yours too.
No one would ever taste my tears like you did.
People leave us with scars, but you have left me silky smooth
and in need of something else to bother about.
The last time they removed something from me,
I retained it with me, so that it wouldn’t pollute the world out there
with the part of me I prefer not to share.
But now that you’re out there, as a discarded fat globule,
please stay bound to discretion.
Do not let my deepest self run out on the streets.
There would be chaos.
Crawlies
As I open the cupboard to fetch
packets of turmeric and ginger,
out sidles a grey, striped creature,
scampering towards my favourite rug.
Like I have banished it from its country.
It might have colonized the bottom shelf;
I’d never know, I’m not friends with it.
For a moment, my skin turns ice-cold.
It might visit our bedroom, shapeshifting
into the monster that my daughter fears.
But it slithers, mocking my apprehension,
to its usual jaunt – under the fridge.
As the milk comes to a perfect boil,
each bubble reflecting my tortured soul,
I see another one on the glass cupboard.
Its posterior skin – a pastel cream.
Tail swaying, throat pulsating, it moves.
I wonder whether it’s the same one.
Somehow it made its way into the kitchen,
while I was skillfully daydreaming
about the masks I should wear for the day.
It climbs to the side jamb and settles there.
And I’m still wondering if it’s the same.
I quell the urge to check under the fridge.
As I stride towards the laundry basket,
another one trots down the peach wall.
I swallow a scream and drop the clothes.
Now I’m sure it’s a teleporting witch,
as it hides coolly amidst the broomsticks.
It’d soon milk my disgust to have fun.
Are there three of them? Or just one?
Did I wrong the species in my past life?
There are three, there are three, I am sure.
Chirp, chirp, chirp goes another one.
Lizard sound astrology be damned,
I want to fumigate the goddamn house.
Music is The Only God I Know
On most days,
I cannot dissociate myself
from music.
Every dribbling moment,
a fraction of a tune,
a sliver of a melody,
a bunch of gamakas,
a prelude,
a postlude
or an interlude
is ingrained in my brain.
My limbs break into
the teensiest shake.
The lyrics of a few
are sculpted
in the creases of my lips.
My head begins to bob
as if propelled by some force.
Music becomes the mother
that cranes its head
to feed the hungry baby birds.
And that’s how
I swallow it whole,
becoming the music.
On most days,
I try to understand
how I feel the feelings I feel
when a soul-clenching song
drives me back
into the arms of nostalgia.
Or how a specific raga
drenches me in saudade.
Or how a few songs
have built a parallel universe
for me to become the queen
of the lives I never got to live.
Music becomes the endless expanse
where I swim deeper
to dig the treasures it offers.
And that’s how
I stumble upon divinity
and let the gravity of music
consume me.
To read more poems by the same author, click here
About the Author
Kavya Janani. U is the author of the poetry collections La Douleur Exquise and From The Land of Longing. She has also self-published a romance novel and two standalone sci-fi novelettes. Her poems have appeared in Sunday Mornings at The River and Sledgehammer Lit. She also publishes her poetry on her Substack website – Dreamy Poet. She is a banker by profession and currently resides in Chennai, India.
