By: Annapurani Vaidyanathan

POEM #1:

There’s nothing perfect about beauty, about you, me and this world that’s doused with entropy. Yet perfect is always what we long for, don’t we?

We lose sleep over greying hair and balding foreheads and eyes that no longer look daisy fresh. We lose sleep over unanswered phone calls and unread text messages and digs that were taken in jest. We lose sleep when we no longer see ourselves fitting into the textbook definition of success.

We want smiles that don’t falter, we think our worth doubles when we make a living in dollars, hell, we always chase a forever that iridescent silver screens show to be our life’s happy ever after.

Oh, and we give ourselves grief when we accidentally sleep an hour longer. We give ourselves grief when we don’t land that dream offer. We give ourselves grief if we’ve turned 30 but haven’t yet exchanged vows at the altar.

We always yearn for our skies to be devoid of darkness and gloom, but we forget that it’s the grey clouds and the dampness that follows that set the rainbows abloom.

POEM #2

Your heart finds the grass greener not just on the other side of the fence, but on every other pasture except for the one you’re standing on.

It somehow only wants what everyone else has – the lifestyle of the cousin who lives 3000 miles away, the career of the classmate you haven’t spoken to in two decades, the clarity of the lady next door who just turned seventy. It is envious of the smiles that float on Instagram and wonders why it always looks like a grouch. It complains about not being invited to parties when it doesn’t really like getting off the couch. It shows itself the mirror every time it tests the waters and worries if its imperfections are a touch too much.

Your heart cares less about today and now, and regrets more about what it could have done yesterday and how. Your heart knows to ache for more but it never learns to celebrate the blessings that sit at its core.

Your heart yearns for a life it thinks is luscious, it yearns for love, it yearns for luck, and it yearns for a light that can make your sky bright, but it effortlessly disregards your courage to show up when you’re broken on the inside. It effortlessly disregards your will to fight, your inexplicable urge to make things right. It effortlessly disregards your grit to keep going even when the goal is not in sight. It effortlessly disregards your unshakeable faith that there will always be a new dawn to look forward to, no matter how dark and dreary the night.

POEM #3

Here’s a 16-ounce steel claw hammer – one that never lets a blow go in vain. Here’s the key to the deepest, darkest corners of my brain. Knock me down, crack me open and hunt for memories that make me cringe. And memories that make me cry. Memories that stifle my muscles so they forget what it feels like to stretch and to smile. Memories that make me hang my head down in shame. Memories that drive me insane. Memories that stand proof of my follies, flaws and failures. Memories that make me want to go back in time and burn my words to cinders.

Crush them all into nothingness, crush them all into smithereens. Crush them so they don’t come back to haunt me in my dreams. Crush them so I don’t dare cross any more seams.

Crush them so they forget to mess with my peace. Crush them so my heart becomes willing to be policed.

Crush them so I can inch closer to perfection. Crush them so I can no longer remember what it feels like to be human.