some call it death

Women ensnared in obsolete machinery,

Women who don’t have strong ideals or compassion for other sufferers,

Spuriously, moulding the perception of pain in the name of a facade.

Women who have failed to develop the capacity to empathise.

Those women who are often the first to show remorse

And shed their crocodile tears.

Evidently, they are not running NGOs or writing self help books,

When they are chatting their days away about rights and wrongs,

When they are quite aware of their shadow side,

When they know what is right but their feckless conscience has been dumbed down

And they persist in believeing that’s who they are.

.

Women who symbolise abusers rather than a mother,

Women to whom all the other women are their competitors,

Even the ones with whom they are conniving in cahoots.

Women who are doing someone’s worst, thwarting and discouraging,

It is tough to purge toxic wonts, think new thoughts and learn something new.

Let’s watch where they have set their poisoned talons.

Whose life are they sucking away in their practised parasitic mode of survival?

Trying to reduce someone to silence, cover and support abuse?

No, perfidy, disloyalty, abuse and violence aren’t confined to the carefully camouflaged history of the customers of call girls or paedophiles.

It isn’t easy cancer that needs to be uprooted.

Watch this inhuman, deplorable practice thrive.

Hopelessly, silently, inure to it.

Some call it life.

Some call it death.

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sustainability

Let’s talk about oppression and subjugation

Let’s talk about suffering and grief

The curtailment of her basic human rights

Think of a woman who not only sustains abuse

But accepts, supports and stands up for it

A mere embodiment of the most powerful person —

her oppressor, her persecutor, the maltreater

Tainted with the same dark motives,

Ominous and foreboding, gloom and doom

Thrusting them back to their burrows

How far will she go to bring those down?

Who are struggling,

Who refused to give in,

who refused to be lessened and minimized

?

Will she cramp their style?

Her only qualification?

She could be worse

Let us talk about her persecution

Her emancipation

Her degradation

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a small token of gratitude

I yawned and leisurely picked up the newspaper and flicked a cursory glance. Yippee! India won! But..unfortunately I didn’t know much about cricket…Well, I wasn’t an artist, nonetheless, I decided to draw something. Then I grabbed a pen and wrote a letter of appreciation to the Indian Team.

Dear Indian Cricket Team,

I want to congratulate you on this glorious victory. Please accept my hearty wishes and regards. In our country you are worshipped and hailed as God, the implication being that you impart us immense pleasure from afar by your outstanding performance. Your unbeatable power of purpose, unity, grit and determination is second to none. Please accept this small token of gratitude on behalf of my countrymen.

With thankful regards

Smita Ray

I attached my drawing with the mail and hit the send button. Though address is still a mystery.

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#WDYS

blossom

To feel nourished and valued,

To be authentic and honour your unique gifts

To flourish, to have your days filled with gratitude

To stand up for yourself and be available to you

To love yourself and lay your claim to a healthier life

To have compassion and genuine regards for humanity

Always 🐝 around those who feel like ☀️

Because you worth it.

🔆

wedding disaster

He craves breasts, thighs and legs

Then makes up his mind and begs

Fancying the chicken broth

He gladly pledges his troth

There, Miss Trucy is having another peg!

🤗

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Picture saved from pinterest

feathery

“She was thinking what I think she was thinking, wasn’t she?”

Edward chuckled softly “Yes”.

Bella lolled on the bed curling her arms around his neck.

“I have a surprise for you”

“Very honeymoonish” Edward approved.

“Is it flowery?”

“It’s feathery” Bella said ponderingly fixing her gaze outside the window.

(That’s why movies fall flat on the box office!)

Moral of the story: This world could’ve been a beautiful place if people had loved each other like Bella and Edward.

THE END

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#LTPP

I Can’t Be Everything for Everyone — Mindfully Messy

Below is the poem ‘I Can’t Be Everything for Everyone’ penned by Brittan who began writing poetry in June 2020. She uses poetry as a therapeutic exercise when revisiting homophobic traumatic memories and describing life with BPD & Bipolar 2. She uses poetry as a medium for self-expression when discussing Buddhism, lesbianism, and platonic love.

It’s beautiful and authentic self-expression and I could totally relate to its essence. I feel very much in harmony with the title of the poem. No one needs to be everything to everyone. There is something pernicious is lurking behind such demands or expectations, even when it’s from yourself, which is just not right. You can feel it in your bones. To read full post, please, click the link below. Thank you so much Brittan for such a wonderful poem. ❤

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Life’s full of people needing things from you,

Sometimes it’s supplying true interest in them,

Sometimes it’s comforting words when they’re lonely.

Life’s full of you needing things from people,

Sometimes it’s gifting advice to halt your mind,

Sometimes it’s holding you during a breakdown.

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Being needed is a nice feeling,

You’re useful for something real,

Helping someone with their life,

What a nice distraction from your own.

Needing is not such a nice feeling,

You’re dependent on someone else,

Receiving is just taking,

When it’s due to a lack of your own.

---

Click the link below to navigate the page 👇

I Can’t Be Everything for Everyone

an ode to the scarlet garden

I know the enigma of the scarlet roses

Those glass ceiling are smashed

And feet cannot but tap onto the shards

The arcane kingdom of roses that crawl out of

Squalid holes, climbing up the walls of temples

and mangy mud houses with broken walls

Ensconced in the dearth of the cement of affection

Making way for the egress and ingress of cacophony

Laying down the bitter laws of thorns and shackles

And brazen malicious intent

That always seem to be on the lookout for sacrilege

Credulously resigning to trivia, blinkers and rancour

Obliterating the shrieks thrust underneath the flecks of bricks

When my head throbs and is about to blow

I heed two massive fuschia balls rolling down to me

And they shoved it down my throat

Jabbing me for a bow to each flog of the fuckball

I know the secrets of scarlet petals

when I leaf through the pages

Crammed with noms de plume,

I stumbled upon scarlet nebulae of lamps

I haven’t forgotten the luminous eyes as yet

Clutching them unblinkingly,

Hands lent to me for holding and supporting me ,

and hearts reaching out for me

I owe each petal and leaf a debt of gratitude

For your bonafide affection.

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another blow in the chest

I woke up in 2021…They talked about the year’s demise. The cadaverous yesteryear, perchance, is still lurking in the venomous, moth-eaten chronicles. Putrifying, wafting off an exceptional noisome smell. Once again the year begins with a pound in the chest, completely knocking you down. Standing at the cul-de-sac my eyes glazed over the sable night. Hopefully, it will end differently.

Beneath the graceful curve of the sky, where I tossed a handful of seeds, where blissful clumps of perennials pregnant with plump fruits with copious creepers bursting at the seam bestride the trees in the manner of a leafy colossus. They allure vociferous macaw and indigenous chirpy finches with their tails dipped in cherry, preening themselves with absurd indifference. Here ladybugs and ants scurry along the callow shoots and burgeoning foliage like colonel blimp. The soft singsong of the leaves awakens a restful ache to lose yourself in the heartening longings and the blue moon is lazing about in the waist-high cotton candy. This year I will die in the wilderness, solitary. With poison-free air to breathe.

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Reena’s Exploration Challenge #167

Majrooh Sultanpuri — jab hua irfaan to gham aaraam-e-jaan banta gaya (with English translation) — Selected Urdu Poetry

Whichever path we lovers set out on with our blistered feet
Thorns turned to flowers, and with the flowers a garden formed ❤

It seems you have set your foot in the realm of ‘rooh’. Urdu has some hauntingly sweet ‘Ada’ and ‘Andaz’ that transmits you in another world, the land of souls and lets you forget violence, dramas, deceit, some unspeakable abuse that oftentimes do lurk in our daily lives where we cannot expect any art to flourish. I don’t understand Urdu quite well but was totally blown away by the English rendition. Thank you so much for sharing jyotirmay I owe you a drink! 🍺

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जब हुआ इरफ़ाँ तो ग़म आराम-ए-जाँ बनता गया
सोज़-ए-जानाँ दिल में सोज़-ए-दीगराँ बनता गया

jab hua irfaan to gham aaraam-e-jaan banta gaya
soz-e-janan dil men soz-e-deegaran banta gaya

My sorrow turned into solace, as realization dawned
Into a new fervor my heart’s affliction transformed

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Please visit the site for complete work – चुनिंदा शायरी | Selected Urdu Poetry

intimacy

Yes, I am blamable for being intimate with them,

Sometimes inextricably woven together

Such as life and flesh

Impossible to tell apart

And I was intrigued by their disturbing magnificence

Those ghosts that catch you with your pants down

And rip you apart

I have lost my sleep over their bewildering past

At times we parted our ways with a heavy heart

When I clasped them in my arms

When I sobbed and wailed

Broke my eyes digging into the dictionary

In the dimness of life

Oftentimes, it was only a nodding acquaintance

Or just a one night stand…

Yet, you can’t call me a racist

Or..

Lay it on the door of my mood if you wish…

Suffice to say, a reader carries an enormous sense of guilt…

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FOWC

butterfly 🦋

No one can deny the unerring authority of music in lightening and lifting up the mood and putting you into the right frame of mind. This one used to be one of my favourites and I owe my gratitude to the composer, lyricist and the whole ensemble for creating such a wonderful piece of art. Jason Mraz indisputably is my all-time favourite. Of course, there are other brilliant artists in the list.

^🦋 Will you float on by?
Oh, kiss me with your eyelashes tonight
Or Eskimo your nose real close to mine
And let’s mood the lights and finally make it right_🦋

When it comes to writing, it sends shivers down my spine what words could be capable of doing and how much they can offer in terms of it’s vastness and freedom laying siege to all your dreams and dramas of life. Not everyone is capable of putting it exactly as needed. A slip and you end up laying an egg!

Below is the YouTube link. Hope the song sparks your imagination and sets you into the mood of writing.

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_{I’m taking a moment just imagining that I’m dancing with you
I’m your pole and all you’re wearing is your shoes
You got soul, you know what to do to turn me on
Until I write a song about you}

_{And you have your own engaging style
And you’ve got the knack to vivify
And you make my slacks a little tight
You may unfasten them if you like
That’s if you crash and spend the night}

_{But you don’t fold, you don’t fade
You got everything you need, especially me
Sister, you’ve got it all}

_{You make the call to make my day
In your message say my name
Your talk is all the talk
Sister, you’ve got it all
You got it all}

_{Curl your upper lip up and let me look around
Ride your tongue along your bottom lip then bite down
And bend your back and ask those hips if I can touch
‘Cause they’re the perfect jumping off point
Getting closer to your butterfly}

_{Will you float on by?
Oh, kiss me with your eyelashes tonight
Or Eskimo your nose real close to mine
And let’s mood the lights and finally make it right}

_{But you don’t fold, you don’t fade
You got everything you need, especially me
Sister, you’ve got it all}

_{You make the call to make my day
In your message say my name
Your talk is all the talk
Sister, you’ve got it all}

_{You got it all, you got it all, you got it all
You got it all, you got it all, you got it all
You got it all, woo, hey baby, uh
You’ve got it all}

_{Doll, I need to see you pull your knee socks up
Let me feel you upside down, slide in, slide out
Slide over here, climb into my mouth now child}

_{Butterfly well you landed on my mind
Damn right you landed on my ear and then you crawled inside
And now I see you perfectly behind closed eyes
I want to fly with you and I don’t want to lie to you}

_{‘Cause I, ’cause I can’t recall a better day
So I’m coming to shine on the occasion
You’re an open-minded lady, you’ve got it all}

_{And I never forget a face
Except for maybe my own, I have my days
And let’s face the fact here
It’s you who’s got it all}

_{You know that fortune favors the brave
Well let me get paid while I make your breakfast
The rest is up to you, you make the call}

_{You make the call to make my day
In your message say my name
Your talk is all the talk
Sister, you’ve got it all
I can’t recall a better day
So I’m coming to shine on the occasion
Hey sophisticated lady, oh you got it all
You got it all, you got it all
You got it all, you got it all, you got it all
You got it all, you got it all, you got it all
You got it all! Hey! You got it all, woo!
You got it all
You got it all
You got it all
Butterfly, baby, well you got it all}

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Butterfly by Jason Mraz

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