Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, Volume 1, Number 2. November 2018. ISSN: 2581-7094
Black
--- Maitreyee Mhatre
Drawing my cloak tighter and closer,
my frail body invisible once more
to all the eyes passing by
as I blend into the darkest corner:
a place where I truly belong.
Sunlit spots infatuate me no more
for I am accustomed to depths of dark,
cool silence of which breeds my thoughts,
nurtures them, helps them grow till
they take solid forms, losing their translucency;
burying me alive as the claustrophobia kicks in
and recedes leaving behind a blank slate,
an empty canvas, a place to create.
I dip my fingers into the inky sky
and the nebulous sentiments rising from it;
I run these fingers under my eye,
fragments of space highlighting
the galaxies spinning within.
The dark emerges where
light ceases to exist: in every corner,
every crevice, every nook, every alcove,
the misty blackness sneaks in
and spreads; the inception of an anonymity
or a timely escape from the burden of an identity.
In the midst of it all, rests my being
draped in the sanctity of this solitude,
the shadowy expanse beneath my shut eyelids
mirrors the unilluminated atmosphere around me.
Dipped into a pool of nothingness,
I disengage from the shrillness of this reality.