Creation and Criticism

Aditi Singh (b. 2007) is a student of class X in Jubilee Memorial School, Mokokchung, Nagaland, affiliated to CISCE, New Delhi. Her father is a teacher and mother is a housewife. She considers her parents to be her biggest support in her journey as a poet. She currently lives in Salangtem Ward, Mokokchung, Nagaland-798601 and can also be contacted through her e-mail address: aditisingh70053@gmail.com.

1. Experience

I experience things before they are meant to,

I shed tears before I am blue.

Balance is something that’s hard right now.

I hate change and I hate me too!

But “Shake it off! Shake it off!”

And can’t shake it somehow.

Before the greens and its thousand thorns,

I shed blood before I am hurt.

Now they’ll say “too young”

Like I’m wishing and dying to be burnt!

In the most crucial years

Your own body haunts you.

It’s true and not only my story,

At least I know what not to do.

When you relate to lyrics you never wanted to,

With each passing guy

You wish their eyes meet with you.

Crushing your sweater

To stop the heart crushing within.

I experience things before they get mean.

Heart with thousand cuts

But love on which no trust

Seems heaven’s cure.

The world’s sealed lips

And inside mind swords.

I try to drown my feelings

But the splash flies to me instead.

Where the mountain shines but blurry

And pink is the sky above

But the air seems too airy.

At times those alps are on fire

And the sky above

Is a blend of blood and desire.

With evening sunset

And closing eye lashes,

I shed a tear

Cause I know what will come next.

The want to be wanted

Will haunt again,

And the farther I go, it’ll sink me to death.

Clocks will tick and wish for eyes to meet,

Then count to ten and take it in.

Crush the chest

To stop the heart crushing within.

The world silent but see the clock strike twelve.

If silence could cure it,

I wonder who would love.

2. My Story

My story and a thousand others

Running on the same wheels.

The rivers and sounds like thunder,

Crossing millions as I meet new hills.

My story and a thousand others.

A crying baby then picked some laugh

On the chest of his mother,

Seeing glimpses of heaven's love.

Thousand closed books around

So am I and those eyes brown,

Running on the wheels

Of this million wheeled train.

A green body with blue dress

My eyes can't tell

That much they stretch.

Some dancing stories and some asleep,

It's like I’m holding time

And it slips away.

Each new face and then goodbye.

Houses there are with big dreams

And saw poverty next doors,

“There are two worlds it seems.”

A girl who forgot even she is a child,

While parents away

Or maybe forever that way.

Has baby brother on her left hip

Stress piled up, she doesn't know what a smile is!

Two planets I saw in one today.

One where the unspeakable wear gold

And another,

Where lives try in their strangest way to mould.

Some women bowing their heads in red silk

And some standing with red eye gaze.

Twenty silvers a stranger was to bilk,

And twenty strangers had humbleness at their base.

How wrong can be right

I saw some mould that way.

And that right can be great

I saw some hold that gate.

I smiled and smiled till the end

With my story and a thousand others.

I learned the way to live wasn’t one

But life was just one.

Then a few calls were made on the way

To the families waiting for us all day.

3. BLUE

There was red and yellow

And the blend was blue.

I pushed the gate with a smile so wide

And saw the thorns and the blood was true.

All high up

And that’s fine.

Girls don’t learn, I felt a blow.

Girls sit still, I crossed my legs.

Girl’s don’t want to learn?

How is that okay!

Breathe up once and out goes twice

After I hear what they call is “Nice”.

I thought girls are oppressed

But here they chose to!

Don’t blink my lashes to a guy

Thinking he’ll have the same blood too.

One day I heard those petals say

“Let’s book a restaurant on New Year’s Eve

And bring our guys

Cause who’ll pay the bills?”

A lie told a thousand times

Tends to feel the only truth.

Since twelve they pinned these rules,

Now climbing the mountain,

For them is not true.

There’s no one to blame

And even all at the same.

That day one uncle stopped by,

Thirsty but stroking his beard he stood.

I handed a glass,

But before sipping his thirst away,

He asked how many sisters I had.

I answered

Clanged his ring with the steel.

Laughed his heart

With the pity eye for me.

My eyebrows crossed

I smiled along,

Didn’t know I was the clown.

Turns out two daughters

Is too much for them

Who were handed that free diamond ring

By their wife’s forced hand.

Are proud fathers of seven rifles

And it doesn’t matter if they bullet less guns.

A knife through that art

Which created this river’s flow.

There is life in the blue

But with the snow above

Its too cold to grow.

4. Your Diary

There was a musky smell

Far side of my shelf,

Piled up with years of golden dust.

On layer said “Dear Diary”

I slid my fingers across

To the sweet air that made its rush.

Freckles were then left like those on your skin.

Then a gust of wind

Rifled the pages,

I saw the night and sun’s ray

It’s true.

Glowed more as it met the light behind,

I touched it,

It was you.

I read the lines,

And realized life was never cruel.

We are but drowning and gasping

In same “humans’ pool”.

For which mother flows the tears

Where all moms are queens!

Which life is the hardest

Here everyone bleeds!

I saw what you hid

I’m sorry.

But I thought the sun shone,

Because it had nothing burning within.

I thought you smiled,

Because you had never felt snow within.

There was a musky smell

Far side of my shelf,

Piled up with years of golden dust.

On layer said “Dear Diary”

5. A Pen

My fingers loosened

Then fell the pencil on the floor

Tip-toed my fingers went

Picked it up

And saw a pen in my hand!

The world had new colors!

Bricks on all borders

Pinned with taboos.

On one corner written

“All lives matter.”

They talked “Peace Talk”

No war, just love.

But through a little hold in the dark stream,

Blood had found

Its reason to be crowned.

In the world I lived,

Pencils I held.

If a line was made

Then erasers were raised.

Maybe I grew up

Didn’t follow the world didn’t change.

“Lives were lost only in 90s”

Didn’t know the swords are still the same

Just stories different.

They scribble the page

In the world of pens.

Draw a line in red

Only to erase it by scattering its red ash.

A great war is fought just once here

Because the next time

The old ears disappear.

Tears spread the ink, its dry now.

Blood on the nation’s mud splashed like so,

Because of someone else’s vow.

Banners, candles, no eyes on the corners.

The diamonds, then rubies,

All know the sword is wrong.

But down its tip

And their nations will breathe the last of their breathes.

My fingers loosened

Then fell the pencil on the floor,

Tip-toed my fingers went,

Picked it up

And saw a pen in my hand!