Nupur Chaturvedi

No one

I open the door,
Close it again,
And open again, but
No one, no one.
I wait, and wait,
And wait, and wait.

Life passes
Grain by grain,
And yet,
No one, no one.

It’s a phase, you said,
It will pass, you said,
What you said, gyrates
In my mind all day.
I mope and sulk,
And think and weep.

Breath trembles,
I am up once more,
And again,
No one, no one.

Release me from this life
From this wait, from this pain,
From these endless hours,
These pointless dreams,
I ask and beg,
For an answer at last.

Who will come,
And take me away,
I ask.
No one, no one.

Our love is banal

Our love is banal.
We kiss, practiced kisses,
Then we lie down,
Undress, sometimes not completely,
Do what we have to, in ten minutes,
And sleep.

In the morning,
Milkman,
Newspaper,
Maid,
The children wake up.
Breakfast, as we all rush out.

In the evening, vegetables in one hand,
You enter, tired, hungry,
But pull out from your bag
A print-out of a mail,
A forwarded joke,
Just to make me laugh.
Our love is banal.

Free me!

Dragged to the temple of greed
She was, by her hair,
For sacrifice at the altar of avarice.

The drums roll, the chant
Reached a crescendo—
Mother! Goddess! Force!

The brahmins clang the cymbals,
And mutter under their breath—
Minion! Mistress! Whore!

From a distance, I watched
My tongue, struggling with words,
Gives up, tied in several knots.

I am too weak, too small.
She looks up, and through the crowd
Her eyes bore through me.

Angry, disappointed eyes,
Pleading, protesting, etching her pain
On my skin. I have to go.

I have to go now, and free her,
Break her chains, so she can
Breathe life into me again…

We tasted love

We met at a restaurant,
Well, you were serving meat.
I told you I was a vegetarian,
You quietly changed my seat.

My date had beer in his veins,
Two steps he couldn’t walk straight.
You hated my going alone at night,
So I was sent in the ice cream crate.

My breath was vanilla as I reached back home,
You were standing by my bed.
I opened my mouth to ask you how,
“Pizzas are faster,” you said.

I feigned anger, embarrassment,
“Get over it quick,” said you.
We tasted love all through that night,
By morning you were my beau.

“Get up, woman, and be mine quick,
I have no patience now.”
The wedding had love and lollipops,
And after that? Holy cow!

Taste

Bitter, sour. My tongue has no taste.
Numb, burnt, rough.
I try to grimace, can’t hold it, let it drop
The look fades, and I
Eat, and wait for taste to return.
Insert a morsel,
Make the tongue play with it,
A dance begins, and ends.
Nothing.
I drink wine, syrup, coffee,
Again a tango,
But the dancers don’t meet.
Nothing.
Will it ever come back,
Or are my taste buds dead?

Forgotten

As I learn to live in the haze,
Forgotten by you,
I look myself in the mirror,
Try to remember what I looked like,
If I still have the eyes you looked into and held.
The body you explored,
Has it changed? Is it mine?
The hands that roamed over you,
Feel coarse.
I’m shedding skin.
I’m not dying. I will live.
Though it seems a waste,
I seem wasted,
I have new skin under me, I know.
Thicker, maybe?
But I yearn for the softness, the innocence,
Lost forever now.
The child you loved is dead.
Long live the adult.