Choices

Tishya Agrawal

To be or not to be,

Thou love art, art loves thee,

It’s the choice of artiste,

If she wants to continue writing this piece of

Poetry

In old English or modern,

Or, wants to quote Shakespeare or Burns.

Make a reference to 16^th century or

19^th; the era of romantics.

Or, to talk about Virginia Woolf and W.B. Yeats.

These are as vague as they could be,

But again, it’s the choice,

Of to be or not to be.

It’s the choice the artiste makes,

She wants to continue with a pseudonym,

Or, she wants to own it in front of the patriarchal society.

She wants references, or she is here to speak the truth,

She wants quotations, or she is going to taste the forbidden fruit.

Not the biblical one, NO

But the one kept forbidden from her for ages,

When she was kept inside the cages,

Cages in the names of social construct,

Cages in the claims of moral destruct.

As, while writing this,

It’s in my hands and my control,

Where I want to take this piece,

On what themes I want it to be,

And the themes I want to ignore.

You may find it haphazard,

You may interpret it as a façade,

But it speaks volumes to the one,

Who makes a choice to listen

And not just hear the lines as it is,

And not sulk in their egoistic insecurities.

To be or not to be,

Thou love art, art loves thee,

Art will be there to provide thou a home,

A home thou will find in a painting or a poem.

It’s a game of choices,

Share melancholy and rejoices,

It is the choice you make,

That will reflect you,

Might define you, too,

But that’s the thing about choices,

You will have to make another,

Just when you think you have made enough.