Pictures in white and black… (Poem)

The idea, the inspiration behind this poem written in form of a free verse, is more than the words I bunched together. I think I have written poetry since I started writing proper English. I just never shared. Over the years, I have come to understand my muse and subsequently myself, more with each piece I wrote. I started with rhymes but soon got over them, as I find them very restrictive. Or maybe I never got the hang of making my lines rhyme properly🙂.

But, speaking about my muse, it’s this deep place I have always guarded jealously, much like all of us writers (veterans or novices). Through this poem, I am trying to describe this inspiration, this place from inside me, from inside all of us. I might not have done justice to the beauty of it. But I keep trying nonetheless. It is not a person. It is not an idea. I think it is that part of me that makes me draw, dance, write, sing and even make magnetic machines in my bedroom. It is also a part of something much bigger than meager old me.

 

~~

I loved you through a picture hidden in a storybook,

my little heart so full of you,

when just a sketch in austere white and black,

would fill a million colors in evenings of solitude.

 

I loved you when I first started seeing you in dreams,

such innocent dreams of holding hands,

when that one touch would sooth all hurt,

a second with you, feeling like a friendship for ages.

 

I loved you through the years of growing up,

through the highs of crushes and the lows of disappointments,

when I wouldn’t let in my best of friends in your place,

would you ever chance to come by.

 

I even loved you in the hour when I walked towards a life,

that I was not sure was even meant for me,

when the only cherishing touch left remaining for me,

would be the scrap of a sketch I once thought was your likeness.

 

But you were not just that scrap of paper, quick to tear, wispy to flight,

you were not a mere dream, fleeting to touch, lost to a blink,

you were more than a crutch, more than hard ground to stand in storm,

more than a little secret on the side.

 

I have loved and lost, nurtured and killed,

built and torn down your visage in countless forms,

only for the thread that pulls you to me, me to you,

to safely tug my soul back and stop my fall.

 

When all is lost and relinquished, you,

would be the dust and air that shapes me up again,

when my veins filled to the brim with your unadulterated life,

would be the only torrent, keeping me alive.

 

I have loved you through love and hate,

through sleepless nights of standing on a brink,

when I knew that the step in darkness I took in faith,

would kill me, but also give me flight.

 

Kill me then, my love, and end this strife,

come forth from wilted papers and dreams and hopes,

I will love you, even when love fails and forsakes me,

I will live then, even when life ceases and I am no more.

 

Sakshi Chopra

(3-3-2015)