My body is not broken— it is a country with languages yet to be named, an atlas of nerves that bends in unfamiliar syntax.   You touch it with maps made of myth, assume the terrain from stories told by those who never asked for directions.   You call me other as though difference were a sin, as though the moon’s dark side did not hold oceans in its silence.   I do not walk—I navigate, not through absence, but through a world that built its doors too narrow, its stairs too ste

Drag the crayon, watch it break. Pick it up, break it again. Breaking the crayon is making the break From reality that you seek. Dreams of reality in sleep. But the crayon keeps breaking. Will all my crayons break?  What happens when all my crayons break? Will I have to start all over again? Will you keep my coloured lines up here on this wall? Or does the city need it for some other purpose? Forget I was here, I don't want the attention.  My crayon breaks. Please buy me new

Everything has a scar look at the moon, its calm stitched with unspoken wounds. Each crack carries delight, for that is where the light finds a home. I trace my own fractures, not to mourn them but to understand how survival glows. Hope arrives softly, not as triumph, but as a trembling hand that refuses to let go. Even in darkness, I will find a way for the broken shine differently I Roopal, am a Research Scholar at the Department of English and Modern European Languages, Un

They dressed me in pronouns, and called it a truth. I wore them until my skin tore.   The mirror applauded but the flesh refuses to perform. Inside me, a revolution whispers, not loud, not safe – but alive.   I am both a wound and a weapon Each scar a sentence. Each breath a rebellion against revolution.     Dr. Neha Nagar, Assistant Professor, Dept. of English, Maharaja Bijli Pasi Government P.G College, Ashiana Lucknow Email- nagar526@gmail.com

In this digital era the digitalized emotions change with the hands running on the keyboard. Emojis, often in a row, that defy the science of hermeneutics Abbreviated messages that are as short as the short-lived feelings they intend to convey. The pictures on the screen upload desire, which the inbox messages multiply Sometimes she may bare her soul along with her body Who can dispute Donne that ‘pure lovers’ souls descend to the senses else ‘a great prince in prison lies’? T

Leaves fallen beneath a tree, crimson, ochre, brown dimpled by dusk. In windless air one rolls gently away another follows, another, yet another like butterflies I once pressed into pages; their colours gone, smudges of the past. Bookmarks dead, yet alive. I had chased one to a rose, crimson on red. Gripped it hard; yellow dust flecked my nails. Let go. It tottered, flew in zigzag lines dropped on dewy grass as if drunk. One good wing opening closing another torn, it's ye

Where memories do not keep, where tunes are confused, how do you serenade your beloved? How do you sing open skies and soaring wings, when all you see are walls? The walls grow in your cells, till blinkered, you trot on the straight and narrow. The tonga driver raises his whip and lashes. The horse neighs in pain but still obeys. Mitali Chakravarty has three books of poems: Flight of the Angsana Oriole (Hawakal, India, 2023) and Cities, Nomads and Rocks (Gibbon Moon, UK, 2024

She’s beautiful. But he hasn’t seen her beauty. He never will. She sings well. And that he hears. The heavy monsoon rain has soaked their clothes. They are together begging on the train. She’s singing a song He’s playing refrain. Some things are hard. Some things as togetherness as here beyond momentary ecstasy that the sighted keep looking for everywhere. their entire life and never find, all that beauty is here, where the quiet finger-birds in the nest of their closely held

I am Gaia, your Mother Earth My greens golds, blues, pure chroma Sustain your bewildered life Your darkness throttles me Your jigsaws pierce me  Will you never end this strife?   I birthed you as you bloomed I wrapped you in my lovelorn folds You breathed in my watery placenta You danced along my ripples You lived cosily in my moulds You ate, drank, slept, rose in songs All in my silken wreathed sheath In my shimmering grassy gold ---   You flew from azure to ether Rejuvenate

I am here! I am here! You don’t seem to listen? You don’t see what I wear! You don’t see me? I am here! On my way, I met a shivering stick. Frailty marshalled in an old rebel. On my way, I met a blind wheelchair. I saw more blindness around it. On my way, the conch shell waved in my ears… Those waves travelled through my throat, my chest, to my stomach. You don’t see me? You don’t hear me? Forgive my audacity! But, I want to ask… My thin voice lingers and disappears into the

Identities in a mirage And the identity, to identities changing the guards. Bartering self to others, feinding messages erupt yet in wane, as the target set, all set. Yes.   Time controls and commands circles, moves and pints. Whom to see? Yet it does from the tail to the mouth. Yes, it does so, and so on.   The identities in a mirage doting, cooing, finding and ogling in a chain; the fissures and craters the loop and the chain the vision, the revision and a silence that sust

I am contradictions I am aging. I am childlike. I am evolving. I stay the same. I love people. I love stuff. I am generous. I am stingy. I am humble. I am boastful. I am open minded. I am certain my way is best. I am patient. I am restless. I protest my government’s immoral, inept, and inhumane practices. I reap privilege from the same government I protest. I take refuge in my faith tradition that says I need to love my enemies. I cherry pick religious tenets and revile my en

In a world so loud; T walk alone A shadow in crowds; barely known Laughter echoes, but it’s not mine Just borrowed joy; a scripted line.   Once brilliant a spark in the night Now losing pieces; dimming light. Expectations weigh like chain unseen A prisoner to dream that might have been   So let me run where silence sings Where mountains rise and freedom clings The stars will listen; they always do I’ll tell them secrets of moon   I’m sharing with my friends - breeze and the s

Partial Ledger you leave the lights on for a walk, thinking heat could be preserved, like loyalty maybe it’s only a partial ledger the last building on your block is Schopenhauer, withdrawn to its own gloom winter evenings mutter its own health bulletin, and coughs up dry static in a radio somewhere now, the day is rubbished early in the borough vat; it waits there, to be lifted next morning, still unclaimed you reach the start of the block the lottery seller in his stall is

Frustration’s spark ignites within, A sudden blaze that rages, unconfined. Why did calmness flee, and anger take its place? A puzzle I face, with a troubled, searching gaze.   I was a lake, serene and still, Reflecting life’s beauty, without a chill. But now, I’m a tempest, turbulent and wide, A stormy sea, where emotions fiercely reside.   Frustration’s irony cuts deep and true, I loathe myself for loathing others anew. A paradox of pain, a cycle to break, I yearn to reclaim