NaPoWriMo 2021 - Day 03 - I Lost All Metaphors Last Night

I won’t write a poem today / I lost all metaphors last night while talking to the midnight / and giving tags to each photograph, from / the album I had labelled ‘sepia dreams’ / the tapestry of the dog-eared photographs / of my mother holding me on my tenth birthday / makes me pause / not for a moment but for longer than usual / and I couldn’t take my eyes off her face, and how / she lovingly looks at me while / I am busy massacring the cake / maa always said I was a very wilful child / had my own ways to get what I wanted / I wonder if that were true / cause I have no memory of being a wilful child whatsoever / I only remember him / and the night he smelled of misogyny and hypocrisy / I wonder I was a wilful child cause / I was ripped of my childhood at 10 and never / uttered a single word when he was around / but, everyone looks happy in that photo.

The palace of memories remembers / each of its occupants that has walked by its walls / the colours of heartbreak / the shades of pain / the smell of blood in the fangs of deceit / piercing through / the carotid artery but / I can’t find phrases to accessorize uncertainties drawing lines on my skin / my body is a minefield and / I have planted touch-me-nots all over / running amok are emotions / bold, boisterous but, visceral / I wish to wash the walls and paint over the grudges / and the haunts of the hurt / of abusers and lovers / of betrayals, lies and abandonment.

the walls of my apartment are empty, except for an old family photograph / hung behind the door which I never look at / those smiling faces in the sepia frame / often get me thinking / questioning / are the smiles on their faces genuine? / whom did they smile for? / were they happy, like literally, or / simply camouflaging pain behind their corneas / which would flood as soon as / the photographer turned his back towards them.

I wish to have maa’s loving face as my only memory / till we meet on the other side / I don’t need metaphors for it so, / I won’t write a poem today.