Familiar places and people

My heart belongs to familiar places and people,
where the walls are adorned with photographs defining picture perfect moments
where the sky is the colour of my grandmother’s favourite shawl.
where the fragrance is similar to the incense sticks my mother lights up at dusk.
My heart belongs to familiar people,
with a smile resembling my little sister’s brown hair; soft and beautiful
with sensitive and kind written in block letters a few inches below the eyes. My brother has it.
and forgiveness, forget it, it belongs to my mother.
My heart beats for familiar places and people,
who would recognise me even by the slightest, softest and quietest sound of my footsteps
who would know when I am not around
who would acknowledge my absence and say, ‘I’ll be still here when you come back’.

Defining grief in two different ways

[For me] Grief isn’t faceless.

It is a full fledged body,

light complexion, bleary-eyed,

scars still visible from the

acne breakout years ago,

veins on the skin drawn

like roads in a map where

every [dead] end is just

another emergency exit.

The daughter sits way apart

from the father, space enough

to accomodate two [warring]

countries. Her heart breaks,

noiselessly, like another tree

falling in a forest but enough

to reach to his ears.

Now, grief is the distance

between them.

-purnima

Unexpected visitor

Pinterest

sadness, it tip-toes

it’s way through

the back door,

sneak into my room

and settle right

across the bed

where my clothes

are lying like the

debris of a torn

down building in a

post war country.

how strange it is

that i am already

mourning for the

most tragic days

of my life that have

not even happened yet.

[unexpected visitor]

–purnima

Love is a shrinking name

i have words lying untouched in the deepest corner of my bones, orphaned feelings and metaphors perilously hanging from my sleeves and all the things i should have said when you were leaving. i did say them. not loud.

i tried to draw you on the back of my journal, remembering the miniscule of details that made you beautiful. your dark hair falling a little over the shoulders, reminding me of Timothy Chalamet, your perfectly curved eyebrows that always made the girl next door jealous and eyes so big enough to shelter all the Pablo Neruda poems.

i wrote your name under it and it still didn’t feel strange. maybe you were there for me, crawling beneath my skin, handing me poems that I never wish to write.

you once said, “people fall in love, they fall out of it. that’s life”

you were right. you really did.

and what about me?

believe me, i am trying.

-purnima

Saving myself (poetry)

I don’t remember when was the last time, the sun roared inside me or I had lilies and poppies pinned up to my pretty (awful, mostly) dresses.

I don’t remember when was the last time I walked on the streets without this wilting smile etched on my face or visited places that didn’t ache anywhere, not even once.

I don’t remember when was the last time I looked in the mirror and murmured, “good to go” or read books that didn’t end up being smashed up on the wall.

I don’t remember when was the last time I forgave myself for all the wrongs and patted on the back for all the rights.

I wonder how many times I have to gulp down the tears, not let the salt touch the skin till somebody comes running with a box of Kleenex in one hand and ice cream in another, because these are exactly the kind of days when I don’t feel like saving myself.

-purnima

List of things I usually don’t talk about (poem)

Art journal

The words helplessly reaching out to each other, trying to make a little sense of everything so senseless, but eventually, failing to do so.
-running out of poems to write

You laugh and laugh and laugh until there are tears streaming down your cheeks, and then hastily wiping them away because you don’t know if the boy sitting next to you will ever realize that you are crying
-misunderstood

This city where you took your first breath, captured every sunset, picked the stars and hooked them up your bedroom wall, awed at the skyscrapers made of glass, walked the streets with love and pride in your eyes, is not where you actually belong.
-fear of being replaced

Secretly handing out your self worth to the neighbour’s daughter, planting tulips in her hair instead of your own and slipping happiness under her door just because you feel that she is more deserving than you.
-fear of not being enough

[List of things I usually don’t talk about]
-purnima

Us

The day we began

filling this silences with

even more longer sighs,

covered the empty spaces

with kisses from last summer,

counting hours before

both of us fell asleep so

that the wordless

atmosphere doesn’t

weigh us down,

we both knew, that

there wasn’t any

‘us’ anymore.

–purnima

Winter (poem)

Art journal

Winter would arrive

early at my

doorstep carrying

the remains of

previous year’s cold

and a rose plant that

refuses to blossom

every spring.

Sorrow is my mother

tongue but

I have always managed

to clog it at the back of

my throat and let a foreign

language take charge.

But I am learning to

bleed some of it, in

various shapes and sizes,

on this white/brown paper,

tracing the crevices of the

symmetrical lines.

These days I can hear

the crackling of my bones,

the minute I start writing,

as if they are rebuilding

on their own.

-purnima

act of leaving

We exit love,

leaving a trail

of our footprints

behind, with a

hope that,

when love tries

to reach us

again, it

would know the

exact way to our

heart.

But what happens

when love itself

leaves, closing

the door behind it

and without any

footprints to trace

later?

–purnima

Lessons from childhood (a poem)

Art journal by Purnima

Silence, a seven-letter word was often served to us in our dinner plates. At the dining table, I basically learnt to chew morsels of food and swallow the words. My brother would always spit the latter out and hence, he could never learn how to patient enough.
Silence, a seven-letter word, same as the number of letters in my name and how on most of the days,
I crumble
collapse
dismantle
quietly
unheard.
[Lessons from childhood]
-Purnima

PS: I have been art journalling for a while. So I thought I could share the pieces of my heart with you all.