Naming…

Call me not a garden.
A garden is neat,
tidy,
well – cut,
clipped.
In place.
I am a forest-
Wild,
uncertain,
animalistic.

Flowers, creepers and thick foliage,
not pruned.

Sometimes it rains.
The birds
Keep their wings low,
and crouch under leaves.

And when the fire
spreads,
I let my hair loose,
and roar.
It’s all my cup of tea.

Nithya Mariam John reads Naming

Posthumous

After I die,
please do not visit me
in the morning.
You know that I talk
very less
under the sun.

Come at night.
Maybe,
past eleven,
when the moon brightens up,
and the stars blush.
Let’s talk.

Sit by my side,
I will hold your hand.
Let our tongues
savour the language we understand.

Come,
let’s whisper.

For once,
forget the great philosophers.
Please don’t excuse
our conversation
under the coarse blankets of
well-stacked ideologies.

Let’s whisper
How we splashed in
muddy waters
and basked in the shadows
of the trees,
half-naked,
imagining the Paradise.

Let’s dream all the dreams
we gave up
as we grew up.
After I die,
close to midnight,
let’s live
our dead dreams.

Nithya Mariam John reads Posthumous

When Butterflies Bleed…

When butterflies bleed,
they don’t stop flying.

Maybe the reddened air
they breathe
lets them explode into
the last flutter of fantasies.

Or maybe they are sages
who have already measured the distance between a whimper and a wail
and knows
that
these wings -which had folded themselves in dreams, once upon a cocoon time-

may soar a bit more,
and taste the last drop of honey,
before
slowly,
softly falling,
like a
beautiful,
dead
leaf.

Listen to When Butterflies Bleed…

Bookshelves

When I die
bury me with books.
Keep stacking
those one upon the other.
So that
in the end
I regenerate as a
worm
and eat through
your dreams.