I
When a ship is empty, the mast is unmanned
What a pity
I heard someone had killed an albatross,
T’was unplanned
Canons afloat in the wreckage
No one smearing gunpowder on them
There weren’t any deserters
Just the desert where they all drowned
I was not their chief,
Just a messenger of my demise,
Captive to vengeance, for I had been scorned once
Rage was the only one I turned to for advice
It said long as the chest was lighter than the conscience,
Death would be deliverance
So, I thought long as I was in the beast,
The beast could never be in me
Stained it with white lies, as long as the color was for peace
I decreed the collapse of my emotional independence
A monument dedicated to vengeful justice,
A vile purgatory
Allied to vengeance vitality
Something despicable was born from within me, I learned
that the first act of cruelty is always committed in person
Not on the Other but on the Self
Rules say I will be wide-eyed in life and death
For dead people can never close their eyes on their own
Nobody around anymore, not even the albatross I killed
For I stewed it cold, we had devoured each other slowly
II
At the end when the mouth is boneless and serpent tongued
Structural modesty is found unknowingly
Bleeding internally, swallowing the fork
Washing out hostility in the blood
Disentangling venomous designs from the brain
A poison purity from the inside
Lamentation lanterns, light in the eyes
was fading away with every tear she cried
One eye burst into a sunset, evening rouge swallowing white canvas
The other a floating dark moon in the sea of eye water
Salty to taste, verifiable, this strange beauty of a dislodged pupil
is a mirror for the soul: the innocence she discarded thoughtlessly
Reflected back had she seen her own face?
Recognized the one she chose to forget
Self-portrait punctured in the head and on the heart
T’was from before she had been scorned
To the dark moon, Cheers!
Resurrection stone, for the spirit alone
For a few seconds before wide-eyed in death
She was the same as when she was born
No instinct for cold dishes, only warmth
She found herself moments before life was lost
One tear fell off the cliff
T’was saltwater for a toast
~Ritiksha Sharma
New Delhi, India