Between Apathy and Empathy

Posted on July 25, 2023 by akanksha gupta

Restlessness clings to the air
It blows far and wide,
Soul searching through the depth of stars
That glint past their eventide

The wind picks, strays, soars
Gently ebbs, gently flows
And the heart thumps a minute a mile,
Yet it is time that stops
Slows and steadies, to stand and stare awhile

The promises of a fickle mind
Five-minute fame that would not rewind
A corruption that unwittingly creeps
Excuses that ooze and gape and weep

They clothe whispers borne of prejudice
With sunsets that judgment did not miss
And with a kiss of nightmare on sleep’s brow
From the hangman stood bloodied but unbowed

A garden, unfettered, sows and grows
The guilt that gnarls a crow’s crow,
There the callouses of weary souls
Have long since culled care’s hold

But when the illusion shatters solitude
And pieces of sanity unhinge and elude
Then care takes roots anew, again
Upon each ponderous now and then

– Akanksha Gupta

Beautiful

Posted on December 1, 2018 by akanksha gupta

The Night is mine;
Its tranquil undergrowth
Its eerie loveliness
Its wayward melody
Whose every haunting note
Hides
The silent screams
That seize my lungs,
That claw out but in vain,
Clinging onto sheer desperation
In the madness of this moment
That seems to have
Frozen
Into a brief ‘forever’ –
One of the many
That sulk and skulk
About the sidewalks of my nights
Casting their shadows smooth
Upon the dark and the deep
That glide
Into its mystery –
Like friends of old
They greet
To meet before,
Again, they part
There is a stark comfort
In this that though the Day’s
Disguise is yours,
The Night is mine,
For me, mine alone –
Its louring scaffolding
Its liberating anonymity
Its untold lore of yore
Its unabashed beauty

– Akanksha Gupta

Tread Softly

Posted on December 30, 2017 by akanksha gupta

When you look at me and those I paint
I hope that you see a rainbow coloured haze
For though I speak sharp with words so sure
They reflect a mere fraction of what I think I know

When you think of me and those I paint
I hope it’s not a puzzle but a mosaic
Because what I know are parts of a whole
Coloured by mine and growing evermore

When you speak of me and those I paint
I hope an equal lack of judgment is displayed
Those words that seem sharp, sure, and succinct
Are opinions, fickle; the truth has always been extinct

– Akanksha Gupta