Passion…unbridled

Hitting rock bottom in life is tough

Just when you feel you’ve had enough

Life throws another curveball and deeper you sink

You feel like you have been brought to desperation’s brink

Then you see the outlines of a dangling rope

Albeit a flimsy one, yet a ray of hope

You grab onto the rope and slowly emerge

From the sinkhole of your life, and purge

All the negativity you had accumulated

The worst of your life’s storm has now abated..

*

If you never went down you would not know

How to come up for air, how to grow

Into a more grateful human being indeed

Sometimes hitting rock bottom is what you need..

How would I my obsession feed

When there are no good books left to read

*

Would books be heavily censored and toned down

Would the content be pushing an agenda all around

Would books be devoid of provocative thought

Would rhetoric be watered down, diluted a lot?

Everything worthy of being said

Is controversial, should not be read

By readers perceptive enough

To develop opinions on issues tough

Opinion that question the narrative dominant

To suppress that possibility would be the intent

*

Where would censorship of books end

Would writers, publishers, librarians have to bend

To fall in line with the given narrative

Would people eventually not be able to give

Their honest opinions in publication

How would there be free speech in the nation?

Characters that they can identify with, some children might not find

How would that be good for their impressionable minds?

*

I hope I’ve just let my imagination run wild and in reality

Censorship of books to this extent we would never see…

I stare into space, waiting for inspiration

To write something, trying to ignore the irritation

Building up within me- the critic inside

Is telling me to give up since I cannot decide

What to write about, precious time I’m wasting away

I should come back to writing another day..

*

That brings me to the question uppermost in my mind

Is writing self-imposed “work” for me or do I find

Writing to be a self-indulgence, a way of practicing self-care

The motive behind writing should guide how much time to spare

In thinking, ideating, creating and recreating

My verses-while other tasks to be completed are waiting..

*

The answer lies somewhere in between

If I don’t treat writing as work, I have seen

That on the back-burner it gets placed

As other areas of “work” take up more space

If I don’t let writing be a form of self-indulgence

I do not write well, I fail to capture the essence

Of life as I perceive it, my writing is uninspired

I cannot put into words my heart’s desires

*

Writing is a form of self-reflection in every way

To spend time in solitary reflection every day

I choose to write and let the process be a revelation

Of events around me and their interpretation

Who do you turn to when broken you feel?

Sometimes you lack the courage to reveal

Your vulnerabilities and your innermost thoughts

To those who know you well, you do not

Want them to know about your suffering and its extent

You need a neutral ear in order to vent..

*

Since therapy is expensive and difficult to find

The first solution that comes to your mind

Is to confide in the internet, Google should know

How to help you, some strategies it can show

For you to help yourself find a solution

It can offer a path forward, if not a resolution

Of your problems, without criticism or judgment

At the very least, the internet seems a safe place to vent..

*

Your struggle remains solitary, but now the internet knows

In a complicated web of algorithms now reside your woes

The content you now see is filtered for your state of mind

What you see reinforces your perception, it becomes harder to find

Real solutions to your problems, because that may require

A completely different perspective that cannot be acquired

By bouncing your thoughts in the echo chamber of the net

Until you move outside a lasting solution you may not get

*

There is probably nothing that can replace

An empathetic ear, a conversation face-to-face

Look for solutions on the net with wide open eyes

It influences your thoughts in a negative way, more than you realize

Manterrupted and mansplained

Women wonder why men are such a pain

In their necks most of the time, they don’t understand

These damsels do not need them to lend a hand..

*

Women may come up with ideas bright

But their vocal cords often don’t seem to be “right”

Articulated confidently or quietly, their suggestions don’t strike a chord

When men say the same things, they see heads in approval nod

*

When a woman speaks up in a meeting she walks

A tightrope most of the time, the way she talks

Is minutely scrutinized and often criticized

That her opinion may be disregarded comes as no surprise

*

All the women who own their voices I admire

These are the fearless women who inspire

Me to not back down when mansplained

To keep talking and patiently explain

What I know better than the men interrupting me

I have countless women standing in solidarity

(Image credit: victoriabarnett.com)

I barely realized when I felt grown-up enough to say

With an eye roll or a sigh, “kids these days”

For two decades or so I had simply thought

That my generation was the most modern, suddenly I found it was not..

*

I stand amongst the oldest millennials, therefore

There is a gap of a generation or more

Between my generation Z child and me

We view the world quite differently

*

When the differences between the generations I try to dissect

I find that the most outstanding aspect

Of the new generation is its flexibility

Much change in their lifespans they’ve had to see

On a spectrum of rigidity to fluidity

You can map out my parents’ generation to gen Z

Nimble on their feet and adaptable to change

Their loyalties are weaker, but wider is their range

*

Hierarchy for its sake they do not endorse

To bow down to authority unquestioningly they cannot be forced

A more just and equitable world they want to see

At the same time they are more confused about their identity ..

*

Sometimes “kids these days” exasperate me

Mostly, though, they are as good as my generation used to be

(I am guilty of this, and the “you” in this verse refers to me..)

On social media platforms everyone has a voice

To talk about one’s achievements and shiny toys

Since bragging about yourself vulgar appears

When you promote yourself you must give it a veneer

Of humility by crediting God, your family and friends

You are craving recognition, therefore you pretend

That you are grateful you’ve been given an opportunity

To serve fellow humans in some capacity

Even if your achievement benefits no one but you

You try to portray it is for the greater good too..

*

Bragging in a way that sounds neither pompous nor hollow

Takes some practice, you want the world to know

That you remain grounded despite your success

That you are not an achiever who is self-obsessed…

When you are in a toxic environment the first piece of advice

Is to leave as soon as you can, your peace of mind is the price

That you pay for staying around- you should not pay

The high price in such a situation anyway..

*

It may be the most obvious thing to do

You can run away, but you have nothing to run to

So you decide to stay on despite advice contrary

Because being unmoored is a situation more scary

*

What does not kill you makes you stronger, it’s true

You learn to survive, you learn to navigate through

The turbulent waters of a toxic place

You learn that adversity you can face

Far better than you imagined you could

Amid stormy weather, upright you have stood

Do I have the courage to step out

In full revelation of my age, to go without

Coloring my grey hair- does my vanity allow

This departure from convention- it seems radical somehow

Although my grey roots are visible to everyone

Until another coat of hair color gets done

The rest of my hair artificial color retains

The secret of my age, my hair tries to maintain

My wrinkles and crows’ feet my age reveal

Which my colored hair tries hard to conceal..

*

Coloring my hair every few weeks is onerous

I expose my hair to chemicals hazardous

There are compelling arguments in support

Of going au naturel with my hair, to sport

Hair that is completely grey (or white)

Could be a powerful statement in its own right..

*

Why is there such a compelling need

To appear younger than my age indeed?

So many societal conventions I am ready to break

Why not this one, I tell myself but it would take

A lot of contemplation before I can make up my mind

Eventually the courage to go grey I hope to find

In a world that tries to exploit our insecurities

Let us tell them that we do not care, please!

*

We have been strong in the face of adversities

We have stood up for our families and communities

To believe in the patriarchal narrative we must cease

From the shackles of insecurity, ourselves we must release..

*

We can be polite, but we need not appease

The fragile egos of others, we need not please

Others to the detriment of our own mental peace

We must not shy away from displaying our expertise

*

On this women’s day, let us this opportunity seize

And reaffirm our confidence in our abilities

Coming up with ideas to write about is tough, I confess

I draw from news articles and my own experiences to process

My thoughts into words, but some days I do not find

Anything powerful enough to resonate with my mind

So I fall back to my first love in life- books, of course

To talk about which myself I never have to force..

*

I read books of most genres, I have read

Thousands of books, my faculties have been fed

On a rich and varied diet of fiction and non-fiction

To read, for me, is almost an addiction

When I think and write, the voices in my head

Are an amalgamation of the powerful words I have read

When I read, part of the author’s voice I imbibe

I conjure up scenes that their words have described

Each book I read becomes a part of my consciousness

The printed word has the ability to indelibly impress

Upon my brain what it wants to convey

Therefore my fascination with books shall never go away

Before I break let me bend just a bit

Squeeze and tuck to make my aspirations fit

Into the life I have and the circumstances I face today

Perhaps I can then shape tomorrow in a way

That aligns more clearly with the path I have in mind

But if I break today, a better tomorrow I shall never find

*

Let me just pull back before I snap

Walk away before getting caught in the trap

Of the grass being greener on the other side

That is always an illusion, I know deep inside

Let me not act on impulses that arise

From simmering anger- that would be unwise

*

Let me look, and look hard before I leap

Without throwing caution to the winds let me keep

My wits around me, more than ever I need them now

So that I do not break, but just bend somehow