I Want To Be Heard

I do not want to be seen
You may not like my face
I do not want to acquaint
You may not like my nature
I do not want you to feel my touch
You may find me very harsh.
I want to be heard
For my words will have rich meanings
For my words will help you
Some way. Someday.
Somehow.
And you will remember me.
You may not have seen my face
But my words will find an abode in your mind.
And if I'm on your mind
I'll be supplied to the Isle of your heart
You may not have seen my face
But I will reside in your heart.

~Sukhman K Atwal

I'm Still Breathing

Sometimes I want to ditch life
And cross oblivion
See what afterlife feels like
See what it's like
To die a coward's death
To commit suicide

But then I'm a coward already
And I seek an easy death

Life is not easy, they say
Well death isn't either
Which is why
Till date
I'm still breathing

The Jewelry Casket

Glistening, gleaming, high profile gems
That adorn Her Highness' charm
Enjoy the bubble-like life of glamour
While outside the jewelry casket.

In light, they sparkle
And glitter with delight
But once the party is over
To the dark depths of the casket, they are exiled.

Like these very gems
Are you and I, my friend
Like these very gems
Are all of us.

Taking pleasure in short-lived things
Then returning to the abyss of life.

The darkness, we ourselves have caused
The web of despair, we ourselves have woven
All of this
Is exactly what we ourselves have chosen.

Thought, expression, freedom; Encaged.
Like little canaries.
Enslaved, bonded and shackled
To a life of insanity.
~Sukhman K Atwal

Gaia (Mother Earth)

She dances in the light of the Sun
Throughout the year

Her pale blue eyes, brown at the bottom
Hold no fear

Her sand blond hair
Decorated with pearls of green

Her tiara, so full of white
Endlessly gleams

Her beauty sparkles
Amidst all the dark

She is the sign and sight of Life;
She is the only spark.

~ Sukhman K Atwal

Note: The description above refers to mother Earth. Gaia, is basically, the spirit of our planet as per mythology. 

Blessed Are Those..

Blessed are those who don't get affected by the pain of others
Blessed are those who cannot feel the anguish reflected in someone's eyes
Blessed are those who fail to understand the emotions of others
Blessed are those who take no fear in walking all over someone's heart
Blessed are those who have been Cursed with inhumanity
Blessed are those who call my words an insanity
I am happy
For Not Being Blessed.

~Sukhman K Atwal

A Writer Will Understand

For days and days
I feel
That I cannot write any more.
My words don't convey a meaning
That frustrates me even more.

On and on
It goes
Till this tide sweeps all over my face
Making it hard to breathe
Only then does my mind
Decide to release it all.

Back and forth
The tip of my pen
Oozes red; filling paper;
With the blood out of my veins.
And then I am at peace
After letting it all get drained.

To write, is a gift;
They say
But I would like to convey
Tis more or less a curse
To live like this.

To choke on your words
Before you can finally cough them out
To know more
Than you need to know
To look around and absorb all emotions
As if they were your own
Feel strangled with their presence
Lest you find the perfect words to release
All that you feel.

What I say,
You cannot understand
Lest you feel; and write.

What I say,
You will not understand
Lest you feel; and write.
-Sukhman K Atwal

A Dark Day

It was so dark a day,
I still cannot tell,
A day of tears and a lifetime of pain,
Or a day of pain and a lifetime of tears.
-Sukhman K Atwal.

I Decide To Die

Within the cemetery, lies the peace of an odd solemn,
My thoughts, the reader may condemn,
It's the autumn;
When I decide to die,
When the flowers wither and the leaves fall off,
And I sit there, near her grave, and cough,
Waiting for the end to arrive,
So I can lay again beside my wife..
-Sukhman K Atwal

Of Light & Of Darkness

Darkness can be the ally of none. Every being has light in them that goes unnoticed.
Even in the darkest of wildernesses and forests, there IS a little light that allows your pupils to adjust, providing you visibility.
Do not ignore the light.
-Sukhman K Atwal

A Maze

No matter how big and befuddling a maze is, it always has two exits.
It depends on you, whether you want to take risks, explore and cross it;
Or go back and leave from where you entered.
- Sukhman K Atwal

Solitude

I cannot reciprocate the warmth you show me
For I do not trust it to be real
I do not believe in your sugary words
I do not have faith in you
I do not wish to live in solitude
Yet I cannot learn to trust you.
~Sukhman K Atwal

Emancipation

All the ugly words you said,
All the ugly things you did,
Your ego grew stronger,
And I set you(it) free, unfed.
~Sukhman K Atwal

A Flower

In the depth of a forest, dark,
Beneath a never-ending canopy,
There waits a flower, longingly, for light,
Surrounded by thorns and mosses.
~Sukhman K Atwal

My Ignorance

I hear, I take in all that is being said
And yet I keep quiet
And ignore the ignorance all around.
~Sukhman K Atwal

A Ballad Unheard (Part II)

I have grown a lot as a soul,

I have transformed as a whole…

About distant lands, I keep myself well-informed,

Even about Earth; the place with evil, that has been stormed…

I had been sitting alone in the garden of clouds, pondering since quite a while,

When a fairy came to me and whispered, “God is away by just a mile…”

It had been ages since my last meeting with God

And he had sent me to a land, far abroad

Every poignant memory rose back like turns in a thread

Every wound turned raw, seemed as if it had just been cut open and freshly bled…

I had sailed in the sea of my thoughts

Thinking about what my destiny, to me, had taught…

A swift cool breeze broke my trance;

And I decided to take another chance…

God was just passing by,

When I gathered the courage to ask if I,

Could go back to planet Earth,

And as a girl, again take birth…?

But before I could utter a word

He said, “Yes! Why not?” and moved on, quite unperturbed...

Now, I am again inside my mother

And, gratefully, she loves me like no other..

She sings to me, lullabies

And as I grow; out of happiness, she cries…

I love her a lot and she loves me even more

From the brim of her heart, to very deep, inside the core…

I am, now, four months old

And the doctor, to my mother has told,

You have a very healthy baby girl

But why does mom’s face twist and twirl??

She was sad on the way back

And my instinct told me that things were about to go off-track…

When mom told dad about me being a girl child,

His reaction was awfully cold and wild…

He cursed and yelled and shouted and screamed,

He was not the same person, who held a place in mom’s heart, so esteemed..

He wanted mom to get me aborted

And I was taken aback because my darling mom never retorted…

She kept crying those silent, painful tears..

While my dad shouted for, what it seemed like, years..

He said boys are an asset, while girls are a liabilty

And my mother found this fact quite worthy of credibility…

After my so-called father had completed his speech,

My Grandma came along, with another sermon, to preach…

She was of the opinion that I was a big mistake,

And it was mom’s fault, and an excuse, she would not take..

I wanted to enlighten this woman and exclaim at once,

This lady, so illiterate, but a degree-holder, by chance..

I was dying to howl and tell her that it was only the male gamete that mattered,

But I was just a foetus, and my mom’s frail heart had already been shattered…

And finally, my helpless mother agreed,

To abort me, to satiate her in-laws’ greed,

I was murdered again and my body lay for days, in a garbage bin,

But that’s no problem; ‘cause afterall, I was nothing more than a horrendous sin….

I was back again, to the safest abode,

After another terrifying murder episode……..

A Ballad Unheard (Part I)

I was in heaven’s playground,

Playing on a merry-go-round,

When God came to me,

And asked cheerfully,       

If I wanted to go on an adventure trip,

To a foreign land, way out of my grip…

I shouted with glee and agreed,

‘Cause I never knew that I would be treated like weed…

I was excited to see the marvels of Earth, the most beautiful of all lands,

With mesmerizing azure seas and breath-taking golden sands.

Its’ verdant fields allured me for sure,

‘Cause I wanted to wait no more,

Illusioned by my own dreams and fantasies,

I never bothered to enquire from God about this wonderland full of tragedies…

I stayed locked for 9 months in my mother’s womb,

Never did I know that I was waiting for my day of doom

As soon as I was born,

I could hear women around me, mourn,

‘What’s wrong with them’, I thought,

And my mother screamed, “God, what a sin onto Earth I’ve brought.”

I wanted to know what a sin is, maybe it’s something good,

But later on I got to know that I had just misunderstood…

A woman stood by me close

I heard someone say, “Just one dose.”

She opened my mouth and made me taste something bitter

Never had I known, that for these people I’d just be litter

Soon before long, I vomited and cried,

With no one to look after me; I was quite surprised,

And then ultimately, the curtain of life fell,

But I’m grateful to God that I wasn’t sent to hell…

I came back to heaven, annoyed and frustrated,

My excitement about Earth had very well dissipated,

Who knew one woman would be another woman’s foe?

This very thought makes me tremble from head to toe…

In my heart, I carry the burden of a fiery woe…

But now that I’m back, I can do nothing, I very well know...

NOTE :

The above poem describes a soul being born as a girl in India. The killing of the female child after birth is known as female infanticide; which was a very common practice in the country. Even today, it is practiced in remote areas of the states of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, etc. When a baby girl takes birth, the village women, force a pinch of opium down the child’s throat. The baby cries for a while; finally vomits and dies. There are even more disturbing cases in which women refuse to feed their baby girls and make them starve to death. In Punjab, it was a common practice to either dope the child with opium and kill her, or strangle her to death. Further, the dead bodies of girls were buried in an odd manner.

If I Was A Cloud

Born from the vast, never-ending stretches of water
,I am the child of the sea, indeed a proud daughter...
My mother is one of a kind
She doesn't listen to anything but her own mind
She keeps losing part of herself to nurture me
And when I am nourished enough, she sets me free...
She sets me free to serve humanity
For a mother to part with her child like this, seems quite an insanity
But she is least affected by others' opinions
As nature has created her to serve MAN'S dominions...
It is my fate to travel away from my mother
To unknown foreign lands, along with my sisters and brothers..
We are destined to serve dear mother Earth
Wherever, of water, there is dearth...
We shower ourselves down on her land
In plush gardens and on grains of sand
They absorb part of us and send the rest back to mother Sea,
And continue this cycle immortally...
If I was a cloud, this would be my life,
A little struggle, but no strife
I would be short-lived but immortal at the same time
Sacrificing parts of my mother with different chimes...
AND THEN,I Would Be Born AGAIN,
From the vast, never-ending stretches of water,
I WOULD BE the child of the sea, indeed a proud daughter.....

The Illusion

The stillness of the earth is an illusion.
Its death-like inactivity is an illusion.
The twinkle of the stars is a hoodwink.
The light of the moon is a hoodwink.
Everything you were taught as a child,
Was probably a lie.
No Santa, no boogieman, no heaven, no hell;
A couple of deceptions that you can tell,
To your own kids, and deceive them as well..

That circus magic you once saw with your parents;
Was a bluff.
A trick of the hands pulling out a dove,
Out of smoke puff.

Somewhere in the midst of everything,
You grew up.
And realised it was all a hoax.
But did you allow your mind to be provoked?
NO.

You kept believing you're a free bird,
Residing enslaved under the veiled cage of 'democracy',
You let the television and media control your mind,
Are you really that crazy?
YES YOU ARE..

You grew older.
You got married.
It was your child that she carried,
In her womb for nine months.
But, to you,  she's fat and ugly now,
You need to hunt something fresh down..
And for your values, you are renowned,
In your neighbourhood and town..
That unseeming soft smile that her lovely lips still wear for you,
You think you've got her fooled too?
No son. That's an illusion!

Another story, another town,
That one woman who hunts every man down,
With the look of her eyes.
Oh! If only looks could kill..
She had everyone dancing dandy on the tips of her fingers..
But that one man in her life who always lingers,
On in the hope, she'd be loyal one fine day.
While she thinks she's had him deceived.
No honey, that's an illusion!

Living our lives woven in threads of illusion we ourselves create,
We pass it on as ancestral lineage.
And make our children bereft of the magic.
The actual magic.
That we have lost touch with.

Take a vow;
Bring back that magic now.

- Sukhman K Atwal.