Rockbye
'Rockabye baby, sleep little one.' She lulled me to sleep. The sweetness in mum's voice was too intense to believe. I couldn't help closing my eyes.
Last night, she woke up abruptly around two. I heard her door creak and feet pressing against the floor down the stairs to the hall. I waited for a while for her to return after drinking some water or visiting the bathroom, but she took more time.
I woke up in the morning with the screams of my dad. He was yelling mum's name, in a disturbing, urgent manner. His voice pleaded for something, bringing goosebumps on my skin and I knew I needed to rush. I jumped from the bed and ran down the stairs. Before I reached the hall, his shrieks turned to moans. My mum, a fragile and pale lady, who always needed a sweater around her even in the summer, stood there with a knife in her hand. The needles she knitted my sweater with, was straight through my father's throat.One. Two. Three. He wriggled on the floor, eyes wide open, a pool of blood under his head. Mum stood at his feet, her face unrecognizable, eyes penetrating greedily through him.
In a moment, I was afraid to the bones from the person I loved the most on this earth. None knew I was there. She raised her hand and the glistening knife went piercing his flesh. 'Mum!' Before I could help, I cried. She rotated her head slowly. She was a person I've never met before. Smiling devishly, she pounced on me and I ran upstairs dodging the blade by an inch. I didn't remember reaching at the top but before I knew, I was in the cellar hiding behind the box holding my kindergarten toys, panting heavily. Somewhere I knew I wouldn't breathe for long and somewhere I didn't want to. My courage had already entered the cellar holding the knife. She found me and smiled. For a moment, I forgot she'd forgot I was her daughter.Down the blade went, a fierce pain in my stomach. 'Mum!' I just called her like I do everyday after returning from the school with the might I was left with.
She looked up, her hunger vanishing just for a second and shushed me. Dragging my head in her lap, she caressed my hair. 'Rockabye baby, sweet little one.' And I couldn't help closing my eyes.
©Mulberrywords
The closet
Thundering fiddlesticks! This was frustrating like hell. I stretched my legs again and curled them enveloping the blanket around. Everything here was perfect, from the temperature to the smoothness of the bedsheet under me. Even I’d the exhaustion needed for the sweet dreams. This wasn’t getting any better. From the top of my eyes, I glanced beside the lamp, the digital clock radiating ‘3 am’ in bright green. Hah! The devil’s hour. I can’t fathom the stupidity of the creator of this myth.
My eyes itched so I rubbed them for the hundredth time, my hand once again loosing its warmth. It wasn’t that I didn’t sleep at all. Every single time, I realized I was awake, I lifted the heavy lids open and it took half a minute to adjust with the darkness. I’d stare at the knob of the closet in front of me for a while, not blinking, which would grow my eyes weary, drifting me to half an hour of sleep. Sometimes when the window in the corner of my room blew the curtains long enough for it to be practically horizontal in the air, the wind chimes above it would get disarranged filling the ambience with strong klinks.
And so, I stretched my eyes open, the closet in my sight singing lullaby. My eyes blinked at last, the knob turning hazy with every blink. And before the eyelashes met for the last time, something moved. A little motion somewhere in the dark. Raising the lids, I blinked again several times as the water was clouding my vision. And it moved. The knob. A full perfect movement succeeded by a thin, long gap between the doors. I knew I saw it. As I clutched the blanket, it turned moist with sweat. The room was a complete silence,my heartbeats loud and hard. For a second, everything blurred and the chimes shrieked heavily. When the sight returned, I found my windows were closed since the evening. A warm breath on the nape of neck, high goosebumps, and I screamed.
I screamed myself awake, panting and sweating profusely. The clock showed 3:35 am, my thirty five minute nightmare was terrible enough to gather rest away and so my tired eyes searched for the closet door.
Which was wide open.
©Mulberry words
Grace
Yesterday, my history teacher
told that around
thirty five thousand years ago
art took birth on earth.
And I got surprised
how this world took the perfect time
to bring you out
for me.
Like the symphonies of Mozart
and rhapsodies of Paul Whitman
entwined at the perfect time,
perfect place,
to raise your soul.
Like the dream of Genghis Khan
to conquer the world
rested for a while and
revived again, at the perfect moment
to mould your heart.
Like Leonardo da Vinci
time travelled to the exact era
to get inspired by your beauty
and sketch Mona Lisa.
It feels like the Pandavas found
their strength to fight
by the vigour of your thoughts.
Like the Jews acquired
the nerve to rebel,
roused by your boldness.
Never have I yearned for someone
so profoundly,
like I've done qualification course
in yearning.
And excelled with grace.
©Mulberrywords
Illusions
Yesterday the clock on my wall decided to rest, and I regretted for being late for work. It was an illusion and I didn't rebel, it felt good to be on time.
IIllusions are good, sometimes.
What better have you taught me?
You played für Elise on your 5.1 speaker and when I entered the room,
surprised, you stood up from the leather chair beside the piano, pressed your palm against my cold cheek and whispered, 'Illusions are good, for I'm too lazy to change the reality' and winked. No, you weren't lazy enough to prove it. You warned me every time you accepted your lies, every time you puppy faced with greed in your eyes, every time you asked me to sleep better, for the dreams aren't meant to be lost. But instead, I believed you were too good to be an illusion. Nah! Reality was too harsh to be accepted.
You were the artist, the illusion maker, and me,
the girl who was too mesmerized by them to blink.
©Mulberrywords
Perhaps
There are two kinds of people existing on this mortal biosphere. One queue holds the humans living in the wait of The Great Perhaps. Bearing a warrior in their hearts, everyday they fertilize their hopes, sharpen their knives and dust their knees off to run again. Even if terribly broken, they know they can heal and even if not, they can shine as loud as others. The Great Perhaps ignites their soul, they can dance on fire and still be smiling in the hope of rain. In short, they can be called the optimistic in the wise words of the world.
The second herd never cleanse their scars, never look for stars to wish, to live again. Slaves of their routine, they’re chained by their experience and never miss a chance to believe in disbelief. The Great Perhaps never fuels their life. Their blood runs till it has to, never their last breath holds exhaustion from trying.
Some die to live more than just breathing.
Some live to die in hope of nothing.
©Mulberrywords
Nights
Remember those winter nights, when you can't wait to get under your blanket? The
favourite one which is just a little long than ur size to cover you completely, is neither
too cold nor too warm. Under which you get all cozy and comfy, enjoying when every
bit of your uncovered skin brushes past the cool touch. When even its smell drifts you
to sweet dreams.
I feel your memories like that cozy cocoon. Warming me in my coldest nights. In my
coldest fights with myself.
It was different before. The way they haunted me even under the sun glowing.
Remembering your little lies, your brown eyes, the way your lips curve when you smile,
made me dig my nails deep into my skin. Eventually, the way they treated me morphed
into something calm, something cool and warm at the same time. Like a thunderstorm
changing into a little drizzle in seconds. Time didnt healed me though, it never does. It
replaced the intensity, the fierce summer afternoon glided into dusk, and finally
twilight.
Right now I'm at peace, with my little blanket and me.
Castle on lies.
And there again. A dozen bricks stumbling on my heart. So fast it didn’t even bleed. So hard I couldn’t even breathe. Neither the bricks piled up, allowing my feelings to be unveiled by a wall. Emotions ran wilder than my hair in the wind, were prevailing in being heavier than the bricks. All squeezing eachother in my throat, making gulping hard visible. Even visible were the tears surfing in my eyes, and myself never feeling more insecure before. Everyone saw, but no one dared to question. I was stuttering, speaking with veil of logic on fire. My mind wasn’t able to escape from the well in which his words echoed. ‘And that day, oh god, she entered the class and my heart skipped beat after beat until I knew I was in love in which I never believed.′ His voice was wrapped in excitement from recalling, perhaps with rough memories of her features. Not perhaps, I was sure enough. He wasn’t watching me anymore, his eyes were fixed on me. I wasn’t breathing anymore, an unsuccessful smile on my face. Ofcourse, I’ve to feel this, feel how karma soothes you with fireballs, when you’re the one holding burnt matchstick in your hands. I never told him anything but lies. Lies on which I dined every single day. That I’m stuck on my past and never feel anything but pain. Yes it did, once. But I used it to help myself from falling in love again. Yes, my heart ached everynight like a rotten tooth. But it used to. Not after seeing the curve of his lips mumbling my name. Not after my name became the reason for the curve of his lips. Not after watching his eyes dancing in his dreams while his words engraving fantasies in air. Accepting became an unobedient slave when the kaiser was fear of losing him. I never did thought of him like that really. I knew I felt him somewhere. But here I am nurturing karma for burying that ‘somewhere’, suffocating my feelings every single day. Lied to myself, lied to for whom I pray. He’s someone else’s now. Again all I’ve to do is, deteriorate. Bit by bit. Memory by memory.
©Mulberrywords
Last breath...
I felt her kiss on my forehead,
My arms struggling to keep her warmth,
‘I’ll be waiting for your knock daddy’, she'd said.
I tried my best to stop her memories getting knitted with the war’s,
as a bullet knocked me down.
My last breath disappeared in air, her face, a knot in my soul.
©Mulberrywords