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wanderlust

 

When she was young, she would pry glass jars open, releasing the ugly caterpillars inside, watching them break the cocoon and metamorphose into pretty butterflies that fluttered away free into the wide blue skies.

She yearned to be a butterfly.

When she was young, she discovered that butterflies are the quintessential migrants, traveling extensively, carrying the souls of people, spreading the nectar of life that diffuses into the fragrant air.

She yearned to be a butterfly.

When she was young, she found that butterflies don't live long, attacked as they were by ruthless predators- hunger on their depraved tongues, a retribution suffered for being blessed with grace and dignity.

She yearned to be a butterfly.

************************************************************************

Then she got a little older and stopped thinking of butterflies.

Soon, darkness came looking for her.

It was a stormy night. She was alone, in her squalid room, possessed of grimy dampness.

And then she felt,

Shadows bursting in flames,

White-hot inside of her,

Smoke-filled soot,

Clogging and cloying,

Fighting for space,

When there was none.

And then she felt,

Pain exploding in spasms,

An eternity's electric bitterness,

Spreading its tentacles,

Crude carnal thirst,

Draining her blood,

When there was none. 

And then she felt,

Her modesty burning in fits,

Within the forests of peeling plasters,

The vortex of misery,

Spiraling into great depths,

Wrecking her life,

When there was none.

Thus, she learnt to hate, that night, with a passion so strong, it never dissipated. It shattered her mind, her heart, and her spirit.

Those wounds festered and never healed. She became a slave to them, and they became her masters. Often, they came hunting, as the walls closed in, the roof crumbled, and the floor dissolved into a liquid mess. They protected her from a self-destructive desire to live in denial.  

But she realized one day that she preferred mirages to realities.

And so she ran away.

*******************************************************************

She became a gypsy. She liked that nobody knew her and she knew nobody. She felt pure and austere. She felt like an ascetic who had renounced everything to profound solitude.

She didn't want to rest, now. Not ever. And through the windows of time frozen, she observed faces, and people?there was an eerie simplicity about them. She tried to anchor herself in the hazy blurriness of a few moments she had spent with them. She couldn't. She had no roots.

However, she would always carry the root of darkness with her. After all, it was her only shelter. ************************************************************************

Posted in Writing.



21 Responses

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  1. shivani narula says

    the butterfly metamorphosed in to a gypsy…strikes a familiar cord.

  2. Stylish Gal says

    the first part n the last part held me captive for long…had it not been for the middle..I wouldn”t have escaped :)

  3. Sandhya Suri says

    And someday the wanderlust will find its haven in a light too…trust me on that. Sharp and utterly brilliant. Knife-like!

  4. neetha nair says

    dont know what to say, except thet these r very STRONG words , makes something stir inside , some strange feeling of loosing in to darkness , unending , limitless..deep

  5. V T says

    lovely, dark, gery, deep. u really write well Swats!

  6. Turbo Jet says

    wow

  7. dipankar giri says

    plzz contribute story to my blog

  8. Abhishek Shandilya says

    It was one of the greatest I ever read. Excellent! Hats Off!! Believe me I am failing on my vocab to express the gush of emotions I am feeling after reading this! Great one!!

  9. bronzegoddess bright says

    Sprung rhythm at its peak.. u deserve to be the poet laureate..beautiful..just beautiful..

  10. dee vine says

    First reaction - whoa! super writing. Second - ditto buddhoose! Third - Why the gloom Swats?

  11. Jessica Singh says

    “When she was young, she found that butterflies don’t live long, attacked as they were by ruthless predators- hunger on their depraved tongues, a retribution suffered for being blessed with grace and dignity.”My My!!! What lines!!!…see if i can find some more nectar in this piece ahead. lemme comp-lete reading….

  12. Jessica Singh says

    Young poetess, Write more poetry. I never knew you wrote such wonderful verses……( like me…ppl are surprised that I write poems too!!! :) ) I will come back soon for more from you. Till then….Love, Jess.

  13. syed ali says

    I liked the build-up……….very Rahmanesue…it grows on you !!!

    Great work !

  14. budhoose kanjoose says

    darkness is not a shelter, it is only a make believe.

  15. Teddy Bear says

    wow..swats..superbly written..and of course u hv a way with words..very good..TED

  16. Kanchan Bhattacharya says

    there is a gray zone in every one’’s mind- it just explodes one day, revealing the inner working of the subconscious- painful, but the human mind has depths difficult to fathom out!

  17. Joe Average says

    seems to me like ur story of stumbling upon the iland…
    Made an interesting read though…

  18. dilip krishnan says

    a touching tale of pain, desires, wants…

  19. shiva r says

    a masterpiece indeed..very well written ..lingerin pain woven in moaning words..!!!

  20. sahil banga says

    wow….this was damn gud…cant think of words to compliment…

  21. ZEUS ZEUS says

    makes for a riveting read.