Author: Anushka Chaudhary, Class XI F
Is death a gift?
Wrapped in a wrapper of succor
My body, a debilitated victim to the ire of time
My breath, ablaze in the flames of emphatic impediment
To my kind, a heartbeat is the sound of eons of throe
The rain caresses the bleeding orifice of my mouth
It pulls me down, attempting to drown me
It dexterously envelops my tears
A perfunctory snicker escapes my mouth
As these enervated eyes of mine regard the pitter-patter of disgruntled raindrops
Who are filled with the culpability and dysphoria they tried to wash away
My sanity questions my existence
The ideation of death never sounded alien to me
Closer to a utopian conquest I long to conquer
It sprints away from me, into the grim alleyways of this dystopian society
These shards of glass engraved in my chest
Reflect the somber and true shades of the cataclysm I was doomed to be born in
Long-lived I, but not long enough to embrace the taste of life
O Mother, define life for me
For I believe it to be the attenuated line which rips me away from my death
For me, life is the inability to cherish the flavor of death
Death, the cessation of it all
From the throbbing of my pulse to the shedding of my tears
The beginning of their story was the end of mine
Oh, the bittersweet taste of this debacle is not ubiquitous for all
But my muffled cries now seemed to have been heard
As I lose sight of the imminent and the account of a formidable antecedent
Come take hold of me, O Mother
Your shining star is falling
Leaving behind a misty trail of a blurry past and evaporating teardrops in the forlorn sky
—
They say life is a winsome voyage filled with glee and incredulities
But for me, they were torn away by the savage hurricanes hurling at the orders of an infuriated hour
The reminiscence of precedent ordeals further gashed the cavernous wounds I never knew I sustained
Of what I have known of this wretchedness that goes by the name of life
Tears have replaced words in every account I have etched with blood
The price of joy has been remorse and poignancy beyond the grasp of time
Treachery composed the ones I treasured
Illusions strangled my hopes tattered
Justice was the sandy horizon the oceans of my somnolent eyes could never seek to meet
If I go by what they have to say to define life
My one, it is your beauty that I shall illustrate on the empty voids of my canvas
Never say you have grown to despise your reflection
For it is what makes me a part of you
And you, the reward of my disenchanted destiny
Of what I have been told, shooting stars grant every wish
But will I be granted what I yearn for shall I ask for the star not to fall?
My galaxy unwinds itself in your eyes, my beloved
In you, I see my transformed self
Just as indignant, staring back at me
Your smile bears the dainty flowers that refurbish the rough ruins of my uneven domain
The isolated sky of my life prizes your saccharine presence
It is the play of the universes, etched by the stars
So, who are we to blame?
I am a petty character in this arduous skit, fated to adore death more than life
But how many times should I die before I die?
Death is life personified for me.
The thought of death is the mellifluous lullaby that comforted me when fortune gave up on me
But dare I not sing it for you
As I curse the stars for belittling me with a fate
Where I must see you die!
As you close your eyes, some part of me screams to never let you go
But the other, unsurprisingly, wishes upon you so the absence of a life equipped with malaise
My world disintegrates and falls apart
As you leave me behind
To tour the unexplored infinity above the skies
I embrace death, yet again
As I caress your eyes close
Now, destitute and despondent
My hands, bloodied, lose clutch of your lifeless body
A time of two deaths, the discovery of two bodies
One breathless and the other breathing
Both departed souls move on
To excavate the secrets of the colossal stars and diverse galaxies
Aspiring to find the one that deemed their fates to be
Life after death and death before life.
