This was mine to hold
now it rests within your hands
take it where you choose
I release the reins to you
yet my fingerprints remain.
I leave you the key
hanging from an iron chain
let your will decide
which way and when to turn it
you know which way I would go.
I have said enough
old advice has stained the page
my will has faltered
I can't unring the bronze bell
nor choose which echoes to wake.
The secret has flown
once my tongue unlatched its cage
two shadows now fall
one behind the mouth that spoke
one before the ear that heard.
Freedom bruises hands
when offered in heavy chains
gift-wrapped as free will
demanding they themselves choose
what each cannot bare to lose.
I pass the ember
hand to hand in stark silence
none can keep the flame
alight abandoned in shame
when both wills are disowned.
Two houses sit side by side on a quiet residential street.
In one, lives a man with an unlatched gate,
always ready to pause his lawnmower
to ask how your mother is doing,
offering a spare hand when it appears one is needed,
or leaving a basket of fresh tomatoes and cucumbers on the porch step
just because the harvest was good.
In the other lives a shade-peeker, a shadow behind pulled blinds,
who measures his property line down to the inch,
grumbling heavily under his breath when an autumn leaf crosses the boundary,
starting his car engine, revving with an intentional roar,
building a higher fence
out of a quiet, lingering spite.
For years, the coldness attempts to stake its claim,
trying to choke out the light with petty grievances
and silent, harsh glances.
Yet bitterness only locks a person inside their own small fortress,
leaving them alone with the echoes of their own noise,
and barring the door from the inside.
When the real storms roll through,
it isn't the tall fence or the sharp words that hold fast.
The stubborn, simple kindness wins out every time,
outlasting the cold
and leaving a light on in the dark.
You buried me, without soil.
Folded my name into quiet hands,
As though silence could finish what time could not.
I stood a little further down the road.
Waiting..
Waiting for you to notice the footprints never stopped.
You polished a memory until it reflected.
Nothing living.
I could not.. compete,
With someone who no longer changed.
So I learned to become the stranger you needed me to be.
Not because I had gone,
Because you stopped looking anywhere but behind you.
Still, when the weather remembers us,
I leave the door unlatched.
Not for who you mourn,
But for whoever you might find,
...If you knock again.
What if...
They are only two small words,
Harmless enough when left alone,
Silent, so long as they do not lean toward each other.
But the moment they touch, something in the dark stirs.
A door unlatched, a wound reopened, a shadow that follows you home.
It asks only one thing of you:
What if I had chosen differently?
That is enough to send the mind drifting into places it should not go,
Through the graves of the past,
Through the choking stillness of the present,
Toward futures that linger like ghosts beyond a locked door.
Some paths might have spared you,
Others still move behind you, soft-footed and patient.
That is the curse of those two words:
They can bury you in a life that never happened.
© Poem – XVII/V/MMXXVI
LRET
Forgiveness — is the quiet Choice —
To lay the Thorn aside —
Not saying — “It did not wound” —
But again — “I have survived” —
It does not crown the Injurer —
Nor whiten what was done —
It frees the Hand that carried Pain--
When Vengeance weighed a ton —
Forgiveness — is a soft Release —
A Door unlatched — at last —
Where Memory may still reside —
But Chains — are in the Past —
It asks no Pardon of the Scar —
Nor haste — to make amends —
It simply lets the Sufferer
Step forward — not pretend —
Forgiveness — is the brave Consent
To live — unarmed — yet whole —
And trust that Light — however late —
Still recognize— the Soul —
The day of birth decides the date of death.
In the theatre of life that unlatched,
happiness and heartaches alike
what count to be taken,
to be scripted down on my own?
Knew this all,
spoke it all,
but the ambrosial journey that started,
now being pervaded by languor.
due to Gaslit Soul!
A journey of thousand miles
one step made it curtailed
now locked in the scarred walls
Of a Gaslit Soul!
©Chitra Arun
Ghosts do sing too—
only their mouths
open too wide,
as if no commissure binds them,
like gates unlatched by silence.
They sing at the wake of each night,
while dreaming birds forget the sky;
when moonlight burns its brightest,
and the awoken owls can only howl.
Though they sing in graves of clay,
their melodies rise beyond the day;
they are melodious on heaven’s rim,
then blend with silence when the wind rolls on wheels.
Their songs are celestial fire—
angels their ecclesiastics, their choirmasters.
The notes are sonorous,
yet only danced to by
the flapping of their wings—
not by wriggling waists
nor kicking limbs;
for their legs no longer walk but float,
and motion keeps no memory—
a breath dissolved in thin air.
Their song—once mortal, once mundane—
now a chorus divinely condoned;
for they were composed
and filled with praise for the King of Glory—
the One who holds the crown alone,
who shares His glory with no one.
I’ve walked the length of my sentence
long after the gates unlatched,
counting the gravel underfoot
as if each stone might still accuse.
The years have grown moss over my name,
but transgression carved into memory’s vestibule
means there is always one chair turned away,
its back carved with the shape of my absence.
I’ve mended the fence,
stitched the torn sleeve,
poured water into the roots I once scorched—
but the wind still carries
a syllable I cannot unhear.
So I move,
but not without the weight of glancing—
a pilgrim with a mirror in his pack,
catching the ghost of my own retreat.
And forward is a road
that keeps folding back on itself,
a loop of weathered timber and rain-dark stone,
where even the horizon
wears my shadow like a borrowed coat,
and the door I step through
is always the same vestibule.
.
An isolating darkness looms:
A numb yet tingled skin;
And residues of twilight's gloom,
As walls unseen close in.
This place feels sharp, yet vague and stale;
The clash stirs strife within.
My fingers click and spread—a snap!
So faint—I fear I'm dead.
Insipid airs invade my lungs:
The voices haunt my ears;
Adrift in dreamlike black, undone,
Alone, still lacking fear.
Commanded, guided, commandeered
My soul is tugged then shoved;
My anger swells, for loss so sheer,
No helm, no sense, bereft.
To think, therefore to be—I blare!
The real is mine to snatch;
I’ll walk into the tunnel’s flare,
My exit door unlatched.
To be able to admit when your wrong
Can only make a love grow strong
To be able to give your heart unlatched
With no strings attached
Will make a love complete
Caring, sharing with a laugh
(It was good to hear you laugh)
Love doesn't blame
It doesn't play those foolish games
It's the nectar, the ambrosia
It burns the cloven flames
It bares what God gives of Himself
He has a Name above all names
Is it a crime to want to seek Paradise
The pursuit of happiness in this life?
Grab hold of some fantasy and run
To a place where two hearts become one
Make some time and find that special place
Living Coram Deo, before God's face
It's not hate here, that leaves scars
It's meadows, clouds, rainbows and guitars
It's angels, stars and choirs but not a devil's grin
It's you and I, it's velvet
Just feel the softness against your skin
The whistle blows, the chugging starts -
A steam train ride in France -
For those who like to try things
From the past, this is your chance.
Since when it’s time to turn around,
The leading car’s unlatched
And driven to a turntable
Before it’s reattached.
The locomotive then gets cranked,
By hand! one circle ‘round.
The engineer next drives to where
The once-caboose is found.
The train is reconnected
And goes back the way it came,
Passing trees and giant rock formations,
Looking all the same.
An aqueduct appears and there’s
An eagle in the sky,
But what impresses most on board
As we go zipping by
Is a trio by the river,
Down below and quickly viewed,
Being very French, relaxing
Near the water, in the nude.
There’s a box lying somewhere.
Somewhere in a dusty cupboard.
Somewhere behind old paper, older words, and wounds older still.
Somewhere no one can find it.
I think about it, sometimes.
Sometimes, when I breathe.
Sometimes, when I exhale puffs of grey smoke and let those rashes bleed.
Sometimes, when in the dead of night, my lashes are wet.
Sometimes, when I’m looking somewhere, lost and stumble upon a sunset.
Apples and peaches,
Magentas and vermilions,
Pearls and emeralds,
all strewn across a cobalt, teal sky.
The sky you loved.
I drown in it when no one’s looking.
No one would understand, anyway.
I miss them reflected in that shard of glass we held together.
The one that broke, in giggles and hysterics, that very summer.
The one that I, upon a whim, hid in a wooden chest.
The one that I, with trembling hands, unlatched years later.
Long after you had left.
And it’s much too late
to go back
Much too late.
Longing for the flowers that adorn my garden patch
I open wide the door that I imagine sits unlatched
Inside this magic land of mine, I'm longing to explore
every dainty blossom bud arranged with sweet adore
Une belle Epoque, "a period of high artistic view"
each boutonnieres is a whisper of, " and how are you ?"
Abiding in the charms of my annual florets,
I sit and take to wonder, how it is that we first met
It was Maytime and the sun was oh ! bran new
yes we were enamored and we stuck like crazy glue
Two petals sharing one flower, we clung like poetry
leaning on each other sharing secrets, drinking tea
Oh but that was long ago, when love was all we knew
two flowers growing wild aside some gentle feverfews
Steadfast as the sun and moon we were back then
as I sit here in my garden for the life of me,
I cannot remember, when ?
The house cat unlatched the cage door;
Squeezed in to then find he's done for.
A quick turn-about
Canary flew out!
Cat's stuck, and bird's free to explore!
The day of birth decided,
the date of Death.
In the theatre of life that unlatched,
happiness to what count
heartaches to what count to be taken,
to be scripted down on my own.
Knew this all,
spoke it all,
but the ambrosial journey that started,
now being pervaded by languor.
Due to a Gaslit Soul!
A journey of thousand miles
one step made it curtailed
Now locked in the scarred walls
Of a Gaslit Soul!
©?Chitra Arun
2023
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