Begin
Clichés parallel park in stop motion
Self-fulfilling prophecies now
Time accelerates forward
In open gestures of
What’s no longer me
Memory reeling backward
Through faux, love, and blues
Drifting, fading revelations
In mind’s overdrive of come what may
Forever’s in crossroads of fears and tears
To will promises in every possible way
Test of courage, wistfully in nigh
Speed braking the cynics to rest
Options thrust, choices to make,
Karmic paybacks fuse character
Without being held irredeemable
A little less dour
Of being absolutely fine
In my own darned way

~ Keerthi Iyer

Mumbai, India