The Normal Nothing

The Normal Nothing

By: Akhilesh Agarwal

Mother, when I come home,

I won’t be true, I won’t be clean

I will hold myself

With the silence in between

And mother, could you smile

For a fleeting moment

Soon enough, your son shall die

After he sees the swallows fly 

He shall kiss himself between the bridge of his nose

He shall sing himself all his favourite notes

Mother, could you feel the goodbye

Like some air sucked out of an abandoned room

He left his teardrops beneath that cabinet

Could you check and see if they have dried

Or if they still cake his face, stuffed in a bag

And you are miles away, looking away.

Hail and Quivers

'Memories warm you up from the inside. but they also tear you apart.' ~Haruki Murakami, Kafka On The Shore.

This poem is vaguely inspired by a book I recently read, 'Never Let Me Go' by Kazuo Ishiguro. The book left a very deep impression on me and I feel the aforementioned quote summarises the book and the poem perfectly.

Hail and Quivers

By: Akhilesh Agarwal

In our isolation was a sense of freedom

We stood at land’s edge and felt home

You wrestled your way into me

And l didn't remember a time before anymore

Your body was, no doubt, wasting

Breaking like an old beaten boat

But your eyes were all stars and sugar

And glazing over with the thought of time

The eternity stood in wind, hushed and quiet

But you could feel it crawling your way up your spine

You grabbed at your cord and pulled down

And fell, fell deeper into the recesses of my mind.