Category: Poems
RELATIONSHIPS
In the 1990s
As a child
I longed for bonding
Bonding among cousins
Bonding among relatives
But somehow, I could never understand
The reservations grown-ups had.
Why could sleep-overs be not common?
Why could one not barge into a cousin’s house for breakfast
Or just make impromptu plans with relatives
Why?
The family politics was always beyond me!
Shift to the 2020s
Now, a grown up
I still crave for bonding
Now I have my reservations
Bound by the daily rigmarole
I struggle to find time and energy
To maintain relationships
And at some point
My comfort takes precedence
Where I feel that sleep is more important
Than making a call to my sister or brother
Or to invite my nieces or nephews for that sleepover
That aside, an even more pressing thought is:
Will we be able to bond? Or will the conversations be awkward?
No family politics here, yet difference in ideologies, thoughts, actions
Seem to create an invisible wall
Where each wants their own space
Were these the reservations that I could not understand as a child?
How I long to throw caution to the wind and just bond with people
Forge heart to heart connections that rise above doubts and negative feelings
And enter a realm where only relationship reigns supreme!
To Billy who is no more
Amid the bleat of goats
Billy is taken to the slaughter house
One huge blow
And lo! Billy is no more
The sharpened knife
Finds the right spot
Just a knock
And the bones and ribs
That once kept Billy together
Easily fall apart
And as the sliding knife
Paves its way through
Billy is turned into pieces.
Isn’t it so simple, so easy
To quieten and bring to end
A God’s creation?
Has it every happened to you?
That you saw a vision of a rising sky
Smelt the fragrance of eternity
Heard a deep voice within you
Asking you to rise above
And taste the blisfullness of being alive
Has it ever happened to you?