Words.

There comes a time in one’s life

when words no longer help.

Words, they had been my thing.

Since long.

Now they seem not.

No language can have enough words to express

what one really feels.

We interpret, we try to understand,

We, then, put the words in a string.

Yet, now has come a time

Words deny being my haven.

It’s a phase, I suppose.

I desperately hope.

People, close and distant, do not interest me.

Chats and calls, make no difference.

Everything that can be said,

seems a waste of breath.

They say, talking helps.

No, it doesn’t.

Low, that’s how I have been.

Yet, I am not sad or upset.

I smile, I exchange formalities

as and when I meet people.

I laugh if something is funny,

Or at least my lips curve a little.

Nothing is wrong in my life.

Yet, something constantly feels out of place.

What is it? Where is it?

I wonder, I scratch my head,

I change places, I take breaks,

I turn the pages, I scribble,

I search again, I map my mind,

and I find voices in a duel

“Fit in, oh belong!” cried one,

recalling Kamla Das.

“Accept the rejection!”,

countered the other half.

Words. People speak many.

They speak without knowing the meanings.

They speak with assumed synonyms.

They do not mean half the things they say.

But they like to keep talking,

They like to misuse and abuse the words,

Because well, small talks need to feel the space.

What harm can they do?

But then again, there is the other lot.

They like it fancy;

The ones with Joey’s brain;

The ones with the thesaurus in the hand,

The ones who turn happy to felicitous,

The ones who want to be extraordinary.

The ones who deny keeping it simple.

And somewhere in between I dwell

“You over think!”

“Why take words so seriously?”

“Chill bro!”

“Nobody cares!”

This world isn’t a great place.

Indifferent, people are indifferent.

Words they say, you say, I say,

In the end, it is meaningless.

“But oh! What’s with such nihilism?”

To spend a life imprisoned in mediocrity,

keeps them satisfied.

Who bothers to take a step forward?

If someone does,

“Thou shalt NOT.”

And then they ask involuntarily,

“What is wrong with you?”

Nothing, I say. Just nothing.

The words, my words,

they have run away from me.