हमारी शायरी में सच कहाँ है
कि हमने ज़िंदगी में क्या किया है
कभी जो रफ़्तगाँ की याद आई
तो उसके घर का रस्ता ले लिया है
किताबों से ही बातें हो रही हैं
किताबों के सिवा कमरे में क्या है
बहुत मुश्किल था हाँ-में-हाँ मिलाना
सो हमने उससे झगड़ा कर लिया है
बना कर दूजे-तीजे की कहानी
वो अपने राज़ हमपर खोलता है
जहाँ भी मिल रहा हो दाना-पानी
If god ever comes in my dream
And offers to grant me a wish
I would wish for
The endurance of a woman
Who has seen her rapist
In the eyes
Fought back
Lived to a ripe age
— PD
I haven’t seen grief,
I have only known that it walks quietly,
In and around my room.
And that it can see through me,
Like I am made of glass.
While I sleep,
It carefully prepares a potion,
Of everything bittersweet I remember,
And boy, it carries a big sack of cotton balls.
It dips them one by one, in the potion,
Counting carefully till hundred.
Then it puts my head in its lap,
We ride the waves
I and you.
On a wrecked down boat
Far from shore.
We are bruised a little
And ready for more.
We make a world
In our heads and then
We put some sunlight in there
And some rain
In our world there is no-one
To wake us out of dream
There is no-one to get us
There are no f***ing sprints.
There is a big rewind button
I dread 11 PM.
I dread happy people.
I dread happy people
Telling me happy stories
At 11 PM on a Monday
Or any day of the week.
I dread unbearable, continuous gossips
And I dread complete silence too
Silence in which I can hear
My poor heart sing an elegy
For whom? I don’t know.
I dread being hard on myself,
For things that were out of my control.