BY NASHRAH TANVIR
I bite into happiness with fear-
I don't remember happiness,
I remember only chasing it
Like the kites that cut lose
In the summer days of my childhood.
I don't remember the color of the kites,
I don't know if they were paper or plastic,
I just remember chasing them in the wind,
Looking upwards, not forward.
At most times what I got
Was just the thread, just an aftertaste
Of what happiness might taste like,
All I'm capable of being is
Parched tongue always thirsty.
I bite into happiness with fear-
As I'm fluent in depression and guilts.
It looks like-
Spending a day out of my comfort zone
Wearing colours that would make my father turn red
Letting my hair down like I let my haters down
Letting myself be pampered with biryani and sewayya
I was the fourth one at a table set for three
I took space that wasn't meant for me
And I heard all sorts of stories
Language was not a barrier but a bridge to understanding,
At one point there was a conversation about snakes
That made us realize, we've been hurt by more men than snakes.
Actually, zero snakes.
I bite into happiness with fear-
As I'm fluent in depression and guilts,
Heavy like gravity of moon sucked into ocean floor.
It sounds like-
Gloom spreading on every nucleus of my city,
Yet you hear wind chimes ringing,
My bucket list is echoing the walls of the mundane lanes
And painting miles to route wayward wonders.
We create and mould adventures from stars that stream down
From heaven to find a destination
On everyone of us, adventures don't lie,
They count breaths on synonyms with theories.
I bite into happiness with fear-
As I'm fluent in depression and guilts,
Heavy like gravity of moon sucked into ocean floor
What if I finally bite into happiness
And what do I do if it tastes any lesser?
It smells like-
Whiff of love that's a home by beachside,
It doesn't run even if it gets drowned
As it gets drowned in others' tsunami
When everyone leaves and a red alert is established.
It's not a shack, it's home, it stays.
Finally I knew what Emily Dickinson meant
When she said, "if I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain."
I bite into happiness with fear-
As I'm fluent in depression and guilts,
Heavy like gravity of moon sucked into ocean floor
What if I finally bite into happiness
And what do I do if it tastes any lesser?
I don't think the Rishies were saying, give up the world,
I think they were saying give up on it.
It'll let you down if you expect too much.
It tastes like-
A dish of laughter that dances
With gravity finding a new piece of human being
Shining like the Helios slipping with flipflops to laze on summer days.
Laughter rejoices the funeral of pakoras over chai breaks,
It melts like rancid butter on my crunchy toast.
Laughter is behind grandma's pickle stories and paper plane days,
Or astrology reading from Sunday papers.
Today, I'll steal the voice that belongs to me,
I'll earn wrath of every God
And pray to demons to save me from the monster
That's why I'm happier today than I was yesterday
'cause today, I didn't see what was not there
I just kept counting what was there and I lost count
As if I was counting stars.
I'm student of B. A. English literature at AMU. My poems have previously appeared in Magic Pot, The Hindustan Times, The Teenagers Today, and The Radiant.