Hearts Marinated in Lies: Two Poems by Vrinda Bansal
Photo: Karan Madhok
Poetry: ‘I am rage and blasphemy, God in a dungeon, / a domesticated wolf, the brain of a terrorist party / I am your grandmother’s birthday party and a child’s funeral, / a barrel of kerosene’
Gaze of the Gloom
It’s the gloom of the gaze, of homogeneity of human chunk
nauseating similarity dangling like a pendulum
same bodies with similar curves at similar angles
all greys with hints of blues,
all palms a little pale,
same interests and similar disgust,
unoriginal ideas floating in the lake of the dead
crooked feet and beautiful eyes,
all hearts marinated in lies
but all lies helpless and preventive
and all hands, careful; all kisses, brave
what I gift to you is not mine,
what you do not share, not yours
it’s the gloom of the gaze,
we split it in half, and it feeds on us
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Whispers to Self
on my toes again, my guards pulled up
a cheating husband, a million diseases
I am creeper on a glass window.
not the amiable kind,
I am rage and blasphemy, God in a dungeon,
a domesticated wolf, the brain of a terrorist party
I am your grandmother’s birthday party and a child’s funeral,
a barrel of kerosene, I am the center of gravity of a gigantic iceberg
I am the tear after a triumph, carnival after a successful revenge
I am a needle of a scale, an unreachable itch at your back
I am the branch of a plagued tree, a sewer looking for sea.
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Vrinda Bansal is a literature postgraduate based in Delhi. You can find her on Instagram: @ovrinda.
