By: Athena Mondal

Borrowed words
Full of sound and fury
But not my own.
Dancing in the streets to music only in their ears
Considered insane by those who
Lack imagination.
An idea is born and the ones with the words nurture it
An idea is bulletproof yet so many still take shots at it.
The written word or faint shadow of,
In the head or the heart
Of verses, couplets or endless prose
Checked out in the name of art.
One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.
Today is not it…these aren’t mine.
An apology was drafted
Guilt was kept at bay
But the hungry must feed
Such is my need.
I slip on the mask of a pseudonymed writer
Enjoying the clandestine romantic flu
Yet she shakes her head and whispers
“You’ll come back. It’s in your DNA.’

The king of clubs said to the lady love
You, who are gracefully climbing down the edifice of thoughts,
You will bend my will when I’m falling down.
The apparition of these faces in the crowd
So sweet
And so cold.
Or maybe in July when she let him cut her hair,
She said as he snipped away at her brown locks
Love doesn’t make the world go round…
Letters make the world go round. Letters change seasons.
The dotted i’s within reason.
So how should I presume?

The poet sang with his eyes closed
‘You can’t be wise and in love at the same time.’
The cynical writer mused with his face blank
‘Lonely people meet…. then they breed and give birth to an even lonelier generation.’
The runner gasped with his hands on his knees
‘Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.’
The traveller concluded with his legs crossed
‘Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.’
The Russian said with a smoking pipe
‘Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.’
The lover explained with her slightly parted lips
‘Poetry is having someone to buy books for…’

And I?

No these are not mine, I’m still searching
For my time and for my lines.
A thief if you will
But an honest one.
I pay my dues.
And my debts.
And all the sacrifices I have left.
Till then, I exist on the borrowed time
And borrowed lines
Of those whose sheets have been balanced.