A Man with Two Lives

Akhilesh Sharma

There lives a man,
who leads two lives,
To a stranger though this reality,
hides itself from public eyes,
For it seems so mundane,
So ordinary from outside.

Life to him, it does seem,
Revolves around sheets
on computer screens,
Inside his head though,
Like magma unseen,
are cries of freedom,
blood-curdling screams.

And when comes he back
to an empty home,
To sleepless nights,
to a living tomb,
Finds solace in silence,
and stillness he'd long,
To speak to himself,
just him, alone!

Is he a different man,
in this sacred space,
Full of passion, artistry,
Full of life's grace,
But, does he wish silently
for his different self to last
More than just two days
Of weekend's relapse?

Alas! He submits,
What else can he do,
What else can he choose,
Than to travail
With his duality
For famished bodies,
Make empty minds,
Oh! How will that help
His artistic rationality.

He remembers the words
That these people once said
"money make amends"
And examples
they gave as prophecy
"live life as expected
By our society."

He remembers
What no one ever said
"It's not a compromise
But a lifestyle
And Dreams, once killed
Are never resurrected."

He remembers
And goes on with it
dragging himself
like an unwitting machine
With deadlines expected

Though this machine too
Sometimes take a pause
to ask itself
What's my life purpose
And why it's so futile
Will it matter much
If I took a lunge
From a high roof,
If I end my life's woe,
By slitting this throat,
Till the blood runs out,
And body turns pale blue,
Lifeless as shipwrecks,
Unless the ocean's blue.

If only it was easy
To go on, to pretend,
To be own's executioner
To yield an axe to mend
And he knows the reality
Of what he has been
Some lives, like poems,
Aren't easy to end.


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