Poetry 2023 Longlist, Ananya Varadarajan

Random Shit


Punctuality is a disease
I most definitely suffer from it
Here I am now
Waiting
I seem to do a lot of that
I stare at the tinted glass windows
The sunlight filtering through them
Makes a kaleidoscope of colours on the marble floor
Am I a person of many colours?
Huh I don't know
I mean I have all these bruises
Some are blue, some purple
A couple are yellowing
That's three colours
My dark thoughts never cease to amaze me
I suppose my heart is a dark abyss
Sometimes it's a void
Painfully empty
Sometimes it's got a putrid stench
Of decaying dreams
Dreams of all kinds
Some die as quick as their birth
Their pitiful lifetimes last until the elevator door opens
Or until my boiling cup of tea cools
The others I suppose
Die slow deaths
But then again
My heart isn't devoid of hope
The colours help
Colours are rejections
A leaf is every colour but green
Drawing an analogy
We're all rejections of a sort
In a cosmic level
Trying to sketch our futures
Out of shapes we see
In a bunch of stars
That died a million years ago
Our actions bleak
And our thoughts bleaker still
Yet we still see fit
To trudge on
"Penny for your thoughts", you say
Waving your hand in front of my eyes
"You're late!" , I complain
"Yeah I'm sorry. What were you thinking about?"
"Something about colours and stars"
"That's some random shit", you say
I couldn't agree more