Oblivion

By Dwijisha Katkar

I lie awake at night
thinking of death, of dying
and the space between our hearts,
a thousand stars colliding.

Fear taking over my senses
renders a helpless, unwanted feeling.
As a wolf howls at the moon all night,
each time expecting a different meaning.

My mind, just an aggregation of nerves at best,
like those giant fiery beings across the sky
that sometimes go shooting.
And I make a fervent wish to pray
for the monsters in my head to stop looming.

I take a beat to crawl down the pole of my anxiety,
to steady my breathing
and decide solemnly to give this overwhelming cosmos a shot.
But my mind starts screaming.

Aren’t we all just dust in the magnum opus
of a world that goes round each year, degrading?
And we still fall back into the same patterns
of our destructive behaviours, our light slowly fading.

I beg for answers in the resounding silence
and watch the oceans reaching for the moon, lapping.
We foolishly name this opulent love "high tide"
as the moon looks down at us, gently chiding.

Reminding me of the soft permanence of our lives,
a collective galaxy shining.
Brief moments of magic made up in time,
a force slowly gathering.

Each an unknown depth of possibility,
of flames put out,
a phoenix from the ash rising,
with imprints of the threads left behind
like grains of sand intertwining.

Fragments of our shadow selves,
like unfinished sentences together chiming.
There is beauty in a fleeting life well lived,
more than in an immortal one, cursed and never binding.