Passion…unbridled

She wakes up early, gets ready, and prepares

Breakfast, packs lunch, every moment aware

Of the ticking of the clock, trying not to get late

For her morning meeting, oh how she does hate

Walking in ten minutes after the start of the conference

She has to drop children off to school, in her defense

*

She starts her workday feeling guilty about her tardiness

Remembering how punctuality she used to stress

In the days before motherhood and its responsibilities

These days opportunities for guilt never seem to cease

*

She works efficiently, looking at the clock all day

To complete work in time, there is no way

But she cannot stay late, one child has a game that she must attend,

So she leaves early, feeling guilty that work she has had to pend

*

She arrives late for the game, missing her child’s best shot

Disappointing her child with her absence hurts a lot

Her guilt is compounded when she realizes dinner would be

Pizza take-out, there has been no time to cook something healthy

*

Her last thought before bedtime is that she has not paid

Enough attention to her health, away from exercise she has stayed

Feeling guilty about missing her workout she resolves

To get up earlier than usual, so that this problem she can solve

****

How do women, especially mothers, live with omnipresent guilt

How are they so resiliently built

That despite constant guilt they do not break

They keep trying harder, the guilt never quite able to shake…

*

The constant guilt of trying to do it all

Is taking on women everywhere a huge toll

It’s time to let hardworking mothers know

They are more than enough, of guilt they must let go

The sculptor stands before a monolith and toils away

Chipping away piece by piece, until one day

A discernible form emerges from the block of stone

A statue conceived in his mind alone

Through a reductive process he creates

A masterpiece that the world celebrates..

*

My lived experiences constitute the monolith before me

I demolish it into pieces painstakingly

Until a coherent set of ideas emerges on the surface

That I chisel and carve, and the ideas coalesce

Into a poem to create a metaphorical sculpture

Carved out with words, a verbal structure

She did not realize when her outlet creative

Morphed imperceptibly into a life performative..

*

When she first started writing, her poems were meant

For her eyes only, she had no intent

Of sharing her innermost thoughts publicly

She wrote in a private journal that no one else could see

*

After stumbling across social media accounts focused on poetry

She created an account and posted a poem publicly

She got nice comments, that encouraged her to post more

Her poetry was no longer confined to a private journal as before

She trimmed her poems to fit the layout required

A more sensational tone to attract followers her poetry acquired

The algorithms to drive engagement changed, and so did she

She began to post videos of herself performing poetry

*

The videos catapulted her to fame unprecedented

She hired additional staff as her endeavor became bigger than intended

Offers of live performance she began to receive

Her focus now shifted to how she was being perceived

Soon it became less about the actual poetic content

And more about how her craft to the world she could present

In order to get maximum engagement and sponsorships lucrative

Her writing and her life had become performative

*

It happened so fast that she did not even realize

How her writing had changed before her eyes

Until she was asked to change her verses keeping her audience in mind

It was only then that she realized she had been blind

To the fact that her writing voice was no longer her own

Her creative pursuit had into a huge business grown

With staff to support she had the responsibility

To run her business, make sufficient money

*

She stuck to her convictions, and started scaling back

On the business side of the venture for which appetite she lacked

She continued to write, but gave up performing poetry

And reclaimed her voice, her authenticity

Introverted, emotional, quiet, sensitive

These were some of the adjectives

Used to describe her in her childhood

Invisible, lonely, misunderstood

In the dark corners she remained

Her demeanor timid and restrained

Life seemed in melancholy seeped

As she suppressed her emotions deep

*

One day she discovered a brush and paints

And her hidden sentiments broke free from restraints

To a blank canvas she applied brushstrokes bold

And watched a torrent of emotions unfold

Once she started, in her artwork she was galvanized

All her observations and impressions that she had internalized

Found expression in her paintings that tended to be

Startling in their apparent simplicity

*

Once she had found her artistic voice she became

Unstoppable, boundless, as a painter she acquired fame

When asked about her source of inspiration, she would say

She was the quiet girl who in the shadows would stay

Silently forging her impressions of the world

The impressions that her creative talent unfurled..

I lament that artificial intelligence can stunning images generate

Write elegant poetry and prose, soul-stirring music create

Can a mere human being have the audacity

To compete with AI’s limitless capacity

To master a new art form without the effort required

Of a human being to achieve the excellence desired?

*

AI has access to resources limitless

More than we humans are able to process

But the best art produced by humankind

Comes from an interplay of the soul and the mind

Human creativity is spurred by emotions intense

AI creates by analyzing data immense

Art borne from the depths of misery we have known

Understanding suffering is the domain of humans alone

That AI would not be able to capture in its entirety

Therefore the best art would still come from humanity..

*

AI is too perfect, perhaps we humans should not strive

Towards perfecting our craft, if we are to thrive

In competition with AI in the years ahead

Let us proudly display our imperfections instead

*

With this parting thought let me leave you

“Creative” AI is a product of human creativity too

This is something

I just realized

I over-explain

I over-apologize

*

Of past trauma

These are signs

But no traumatic event

Comes to my mind

*

Over-anxious

Hyper-vigilant

This is the way

My days are spent

Classic fawn response

A net search tells me

If there was trauma

I have no memory

*

I have to dig deep

Past trauma exorcize

To move forward without fear

It is no surprise

That I am stuck

I cannot move

From my position

I cannot improve..

*

If I don’t remember

Should I try to retrieve

Memories that are repressed

Let sleeping dogs lie, I believe

I cannot erase the past

But I can make

My present more peaceful

For my own sake..

*

Let me catch myself the next time

I explain too much or profusely apologize

By stopping right there my demons

I shall be able to exorcise

I just learnt that our ancestors would make

Around 2500 decisions in a day, give or take

While in our technology-fueled world now

We take 35000 decisions in a day, which does not allow

Adequate rest and rejuvenation for our overworked brains

It is a miracle that most of us still stay sane!

*

Each time we pick up our devices to browse content

We make decisions without active intent

What to read, watch, listen to or scroll past

These micro-decisions are taken fast

To our cognitive overload they contribute

We are overwhelmed even when this fact we refute

*

The answer is simple in concept but difficult to implement

From our devices we need to practice detachment

To not reach for the phone when bored

Other avenues for enjoyment try to explore

Simply getting comfortable with boredom

Would decrease our sense of overwhelm to an extent some

For constant stimulation there is no need

Humankind has done without it for millennia indeed

I start with great ideas, thinking the enthusiasm would last

And get stuck in the murky middle just as fast…

*

So many projects come to my mind every day

I embark upon some but invariably along the way

I end up abandoning them because time I lack

Or they seem so complicated that I turn back

Or the novelty wears off, and I realize

Trying to go on half-heartedly is unwise

Worse still, I get stuck in the middle in such a way

That in a tricky place I have to stay..

*

That has become a pattern I’ve come to dread

I would rather not start any projects instead

Of going through the anguish of being stuck

In the middle and bemoaning my luck

*

Sometimes I just skip ahead and pretend

That I have actually reached the end

Of my project, this visualization of a positive outcome

A lifeline for my impacted position becomes..

*

I should remember this the next time I feel clamped

In the middle of a project, by visualizing the end I can revamp

My strategy and let my project come to fruition

Hopefully more endeavors I start shall see completion

At a fair I came across a method of divination unknown to me

There was a stall full of cheeses, devoted to tyromancy..

*

I entered the stall, looking for an edible treat

But the cheeses on display one could not eat

A wide variety of cheeses you could find

But the purpose behind them just blew away my mind…

The dairy equivalent of tea leaves they were supposed to be

The future in their holes and textures a divinator was supposed to see

*

Coming from a culture where many dabble in astrology

By examining the pattern of lines on palms, the future foresee

This form of fortune-telling was intriguing to me

I decided to try it for fun, for a reasonable fee..

*

The shapes visible in the cheeses were used to proclaim

The future, the predictions were quite general and sounded the same

As one might find elsewhere, but I was impressed

By the divinator’s imaginative prowess

*

I don’t even remember what was predicted for me

But the experience made me wonder again why we

Rational human beings are so prone to being hoodwinked

By the promise of knowing an unseen future, one would think

That having had enough personal and collective experience to know

That the future is unpredictable, we would not go

Down the rabbit-holes of astrological predictions

But to get reassurance in an uncertain world we all have a predilection..

One day, one moment, one decision

Based on a nebulous, imperfect vision

Took the road I was not planning to take

Did not make the choice I thought I would make

Two decades ago a decision I made

To an alternate life goodbye I bade

Never looked back, stashed the whole episode away

In a corner of my memory, until it surfaced one day..

*

If I had chosen the alternative path, where would I be?

The question came to haunt me suddenly

There are two sides of a coin, did the side I chose

Lead to a better life, or did it inadvertently close

Further avenues that would have been open to me

Had I made my choice differently?

*

I made a life-changing decision

Guided purely by my intuition

The road less traveled by I did not take

Hopefully the best decision I did make

(Today, April 26 is the Independent Bookstores Day)

I get a frisson of excitement every time I walk through the doors

Of a treasure house of unique books, an independent bookstore

Those who sell books in their stores in this day and age have to be

Guided by strong conviction and a sense of duty

To guard the written word and ensure wide-ranging books accessible remain

To avid readers who return to these bookstores again and again..

*

I can order online with a single click and receive

A book on my device within minutes, but I believe

That browsing books in print in a bookstore

Draws me into reading much more

Who knows what gem of a book my fancy would find

Who knows which obscure author would captivate my mind?

*

We must as a society let independent bookstores thrive

Let readers lose themselves in books, let the magic of reading come alive

(

My writing feels insipid, uninspired

A jaded tone my writing voice has acquired

The reasons behind it I am trying to explore

Knowing that this has happened before..

*

The state of the world is chaotic at best

Uncertainties loom large, my mind cannot rest

Amid a heightened sense of anxiety, I am not

Able to generate coherent creative thoughts..

*

There are days when work expands to fill

Every available minute, and I cannot will

My overworked brain to brainstorm and ideate

With the result that good writing I cannot create

*

There is a story inside me that longs to be shared

But I cannot bring myself to do it, I am scared

Of exposing to the world my vulnerability

And that is extremely difficult for me

My writing is uninspired because I am trying to hide

The raw, authentic story that lives inside…